There aren't many violinists whose playing I think I could identify in a blindfold test but Anne-Sophie Mutter is one of them. It isn't that she has a particularly distinctive tone or repertoire of favoured techniques. It's more that, if you find yourself puzzled that this particular piece should be evoking this particular mood - and so successfully, too - then Mutter probably isn't far away. She embroiders, using actorly conceits to shed new light, or at least cast interesting new shadows on her part - like Simon Russell Beale realising that Hamlet should be played as a hangdog Philip Marlowe. And so on Saturday evening at the Emirates Palace, Mozart's Piano Trio in B Flat was transfigured from the glib and gambolling thing of musical tradition to a psychological work of seething intensity.
Mutter was accompanied by the American pianist Lambert Orkis and Daniel Müller-Schott, a young cellist and graduate from her own musical foundation. The trio began playing without a word (indeed, with barely a pause for the audience to acknowledge that they had appeared onstage), and they made a real ensemble; for all that the title of the concert was The Magic of the Violin, Mutter chose repertoire that made her an equal partner, and Orkis in particular impressed with tasteful virtuoso playing.
The opening allegro movement is one of Mozart's lost-at-the-masked-ball affairs, full of arpeggios that tumble like dominoes and playful twists into minor key. Mutter's wide, fast vibrato and sudden drops in volume, her chords falling faintheartedly away, sounded a note of visceral unease amid the frivolity. It was the most remarkable piece of musical reframing of the night but it readied the audience for a restless show. The lyrical larghetto movement was filled with swooping glissandos, spiking the violin and cello harmonies with momentary discords. The allegretto sped between jubilance and terror. Mozart rarely sounds disturbing, but he did here.
The ground was prepared for a trio by Mutter's former husband, André Previn. It presented little opportunity to tweak tradition since it premiered in April last year, but it made an excellent showcase for the turbulent moods of Mutter's violin. Scraps of 20th-century popular music - ragtime piano, jazz, soupy Mantovani strings - tumbled over one another in a whirlwind of freak tonalities. Mutter wrung melodies from her violin that sounded like a rusty gate, tones like the ringing of a crystal glass and, with the help of Muller-Schott, great pillowy chords that conjured an entire string section. It's a spiky piece by the standards of Abu Dhabi Classics, but this was a rich and inviting reading.
After that, the relatively straight take on Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No 1 in D Minor, a genteel piece of drawing-room romanticism from the early 19th century's squarest composer, came as a surprise. There's a mechanical quality about Mendelssohn's alternating storms and sun rays, which isn't to disparage them: they're beautiful mechanisms. Orkis held up his end with notably fine balance and gracefulness. Mutter's playing became assertive, lending a satisfying tartness to the piece's glutinous melodies. It wasn't a revelation: Mendelssohn isn't for everyone and not everyone will have been won over by this performance. But it will have won him a good few converts. And it held up another facet of Mutter's playing: there are lots of them to admire.
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Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
STAGE 4 RESULTS
1 Sam Bennett (IRL) Deceuninck-QuickStep - 4:51:51
2 David Dekker (NED) Team Jumbo-Visma
3 Caleb Ewan (AUS) Lotto Soudal
4 Elia Viviani (ITA) Cofidis
5 Matteo Moschetti (ITA) Trek-Segafredo
General Classification
1 Tadej Pogacar (SLO) UAE Team Emirates - 12:50:21
2 Adam Yates (GBR) Teamn Ineos Grenadiers - 0:00:43
3 Joao Almeida (POR) Deceuninck-QuickStep - 0:01:03
4 Chris Harper (AUS) Jumbo-Visma - 0:01:43
5 Neilson Powless (USA) EF Education-Nippo - 0:01:45
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
Anghami
Started: December 2011
Co-founders: Elie Habib, Eddy Maroun
Based: Beirut and Dubai
Sector: Entertainment
Size: 85 employees
Stage: Series C
Investors: MEVP, du, Mobily, MBC, Samena Capital
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Klipit%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202022%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Venkat%20Reddy%2C%20Mohammed%20Al%20Bulooki%2C%20Bilal%20Merchant%2C%20Asif%20Ahmed%2C%20Ovais%20Merchant%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%2C%20UAE%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Digital%20receipts%2C%20finance%2C%20blockchain%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%244%20million%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Privately%2Fself-funded%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Sinopharm vaccine explained
The Sinopharm vaccine was created using techniques that have been around for decades.
“This is an inactivated vaccine. Simply what it means is that the virus is taken, cultured and inactivated," said Dr Nawal Al Kaabi, chair of the UAE's National Covid-19 Clinical Management Committee.
"What is left is a skeleton of the virus so it looks like a virus, but it is not live."
This is then injected into the body.
"The body will recognise it and form antibodies but because it is inactive, we will need more than one dose. The body will not develop immunity with one dose," she said.
"You have to be exposed more than one time to what we call the antigen."
The vaccine should offer protection for at least months, but no one knows how long beyond that.
Dr Al Kaabi said early vaccine volunteers in China were given shots last spring and still have antibodies today.
“Since it is inactivated, it will not last forever," she said.
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded