Written by DCist guest contributor Michael Lodico.

The Kennedy Center Concert Hall was packed Monday evening for the Washington Performing Arts Society’s third and final all-Mozart 250th birthday program. Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and pianist Lambert Orkis offered a program of five sonatas for piano and violin by Mozart. The performance was a rare instance of profound artistic collaboration. This exceptional quality was achieved through the simple consequence of Mutter and Orkis playing precisely at the same time — unfortunately, this basic aim of ensemble playing is often undervalued these days.

The professionalism of this duo is likely to be the result of their almost 20-year artistic collaboration. The results last Monday evening were indeed marvelous: even the very large audience in a massive hall often felt intimately engaged, as if the performance were held in a salon or chamber music hall. Instead of forcing the music upon the audience, the duo gently induced the audience to listen closely and actively; hence, the charm and guile of Mozart’s rhetorical gestures and contrasts were all the more enhanced.