By Jonathan Blumhofer

The violinist’s latest Alpha recording pairs two late works by André Previn with Sebastian Currier’s witty, searching Ringtone Variations.

There’s no question that Anne-Sophie Mutter takes her role as a new-music champion seriously: the German violinist has commissioned works consistently across her career from an assortment of composers who represent a real stylistic cross-section of the music of the last forty-plus years. Her latest release, American Tunes #1 (and second album for the Alpha label), brings together three shortish works she’s premiered over the last (almost) two decades.

Two of those are courtesy of her former husband, André Previn. If his Violin Concerto No. 2 comes across as something rather less grand and a considerable bit more dyspeptic than his sweeping Violin Concerto No. 1 (also written for Mutter), one would at least be hard-pressed to call it predictable.

Certainly, Previn had a thoroughgoing understanding of Mutter’s musicianship: this concerto’s twenty-minute duration puts the soloist through her paces. But, whether she’s sawing through dissonant, jazzy riffs; navigating treacherous double-stops; or floating through the score’s reflective spots, each phrase seems especially attuned to her distinctive musical personality.

The larger piece, which was premiered in 2012, offers a mix of standard-issue Previn—terse motivic phrases, sweeping Hollywood-worthy melodies, stark contrasts of color and texture, and jump cut-like transitions—with some quirky twists. The most impish of those involves the inclusion of a harpsichord in the tonal fabric. Though the combination of that instrument with a string orchestra is nothing new, the effect of its presence in a pair of interludes after the concerto’s first two movements is brazenly jarring.

Likewise, the music’s overarching tone swings widely, from rambling and conversational to dark and brooding. The finale, with its touching central Adagio sandwiched between a bonkers nod to late-Shostakovich (or so it seems) and a brusque coda is emblematic of the larger work, which suggests a composer in his twilight years still fighting to prove he’s got a fresh take on things. One is confronted with the possibility that whether or not the concerto holds together, musically, is secondary to what its very existence represents.

Either way, the performance from Mutter, harpsichordist Knut Johannessen, and the Mutter Virtuosi is as accomplished and vigorous as one might hope. Johannessen, in particular, seems to take great pleasure in Previn’s jazz-inflected treatment of an instrument that isn’t always so showcased; his part may be unexpected, but it’s snazzily done.

Unlike the concerto, Previn’s Piano Trio No. 2 is rather less freighted. Though its finale is grittier and more aggressive than not, the first two sections are songful and buoyant. If anything, the score recalls, in a more abstracted fashion, the composer’s Tango, Song, and Dance of 2001: there’s a similar motivic rigor on display in this 2009 effort as well as some intriguing turns of color. Mutter, cellist Daniel Müller-Schott, and pianist Lambert Orkis deliver it all with gusto.

The violinist and double bassist Roman Patkoló do the same with Currier’s Ringtone Variations, a whimsical, 12-minute set that involves an extensive exploration of the sonic possibilities of its chosen instrumentation. Athletic and inventive, this is a showpiece that wears a sense of humor on its sleeve—as well as a deeper seriousness of purpose that those familiar with its composer’s earlier work will quickly recognize.

Jonathan Blumhofer is a composer and violist who has been active in the greater Boston area since 2004. His music has received numerous awards and been performed by various ensembles, including the American Composers Orchestra, Kiev Philharmonic, Camerata Chicago, Xanthos Ensemble, and Juventas New Music Group. Since receiving his doctorate from Boston University in 2010, Jon has taught at Clark University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and online for the University of Phoenix, in addition to writing music criticism for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.