Pieces of Spring No. 14

Welcome May, and Classical Minnesota Public Radio's Pieces of Spring.

Every day, we'll play a springtime classic. Visit our online playlist to find each day's spring piece or, in the Twin Cities, listen to 99.5 every morning at 8. Enter the correct title here, and you have another chance to win fresh flowers delivered to your door for a year! Check back here every day to see if you got it right.

Yesterday's piece was a movement from Beethoven:s “Spring” Sonata for violin and piano. Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter says the “Spring” Sonata is her favorite. In the notes that accompany her recording of Beethoven’s sonatas, she says, “It is the first one that I ever performed, the most accessible.” As one of the first women to record the complete Beethoven violin sonatas, she sought to reveal the “feminine” side of the sonatas, and says “’Spring’ is the most feminine…[with] the triumph of sensibility that one does not typically equate with the typically male character.”

Here's a video of Anne-Sophie, looking very feminine indeed, playing Beethoven's Spring Sonata.