Press
Adès and Tetzlaff soar in Sibelius with BSO; a mixed array of modern works from TMC
Boston Classical Review, by Lawrence Budmen, July 23, 2018
[..] Christian Tetzlaff was the exceptional soloist in Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in D minor. Tetzlaff is an artist with the ability to revitalize even the most familiar repertoire and his was anything but a once-overlightly traversal of Sibelius’ showpiece. In the first movement, Tetzlaff’s soaring tone and transparent lines and bow strokes made every note sound with absolute clarity. The violinist’s sound was pure and consistently imbued with a changing array of colors and dynamic shades. He was unafraid to bend a phrase and intonation was right on the mark, even in the instrument’s highest range when he attacked the cadenza with abandon.Tetzlaff shaped the yearning melody of the Adagio in long, emotionally expressive phrasing. The final Allegro was taken at a brisk pace with Tetzlaff’s bow bouncing on the strings in clipped rhythm. He breezed through the treacherous double stops while remaining attendant to every nuance and variation of volume and shape.
Adès was a full partner, in synch with Tetzlaff and drawing a sumptuous orchestral backdrop. The warmth and sweetness of the wind playing was particularly excellent. A long standing, cheering ovation (even by Tanglewood standards) brought Tetzlaff repeatedly back to the stage for well deserved curtain calls.[..]
Salonen was born to conduct Sibelius
The New Yorker by Russel Platt, June 13, 2017
[..] As it happens, the (Sibelius) Violin Concerto (1903-05) was also on the program, with Christian Tetzlaff out front. Tetzlaff is, for my money, the finest violinist performing before the public today: he can invest a composition with a rich inner life while keeping the outward details of performance – intonation, power of projection, consistency of phrasing – completely invulnerable. [..] Tetzlaff, however, weighted the three movements evenly, making it an ideal companion for the Seventh Symphony that the older and wiser composer would eventually produce.Demon Fiddling
The New York Times, by James R. Oestreich, 07.06.
Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Met Orchestra New York / Esa-Pekka Salonen
[…] Then came something completely different: Sibelius’s towering Violin Concerto, in a blazing interpretation by Christian Tetzlaff. Mr. Tetzlaff, who always plays with pure and incisive tone, also showed a volatile temperament that surprised even a longtime admirer, and Mr. Salonen only encouraged his intrepid explorations.[…]
Surely I wasn’t the only one hoping for an encore of calming Bach from the violinist Christian Tetzlaff after his hair-raising account of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in the final concert of the Met’s series at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Tetzlaff, long known as a meticulous and refined virtuoso, had just displayed a newfound excitability, sawing madly in the increasingly charged ending of the first movement, even broadly if not audibly stamping a foot. That outburst behind him, he answered the raucous applause with an encore, all right, but instead of playing Bach, he screwed up the tension even more with the nervous, restless Prestissimo finale of Bartok’s solo sonata: brilliant.
Guest conductor Juraj Valcuha holds CSO in firm command
Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein, 02.06.2017
[…] Karol Szymanowski’s 1916 Violin Concerto No. 1, dating from 131 years later, inhabits an altogether different sound world. The subtly colored impressionism of Debussy and Ravel, and the sensuous exoticism of Scriabin, commingle to otherworldly effect. Yet the Polish composer had a way of absorbing all influences into a musical persona very much his own.By rights this bejeweled masterpiece should turn up in concert a lot more often than it does; the last time the CSO ventured it was 2009. All the more reason, then, to be grateful for the gorgeous performance it received from Christian Tetzlaff, one of the score’s most dedicated advocates.
The German violinist is a familiar figure from his numerous appearances at Ravinia and Grant Park, and with all of them I have never known him to give less than a fully committed performance. Is there a more physically engaged fiddle virtuoso before the public? On Thursday you could almost smell the rosin dust coming off his bow as he pressed deep into his violin strings, bringing out Szymanowski’s aching lyricism, his bright, intense sound soaring high above the staff.
CSO audiences have heard several fine accounts of this concerto in recent decades — think of Nikolaj Znaider’s and Frank Peter Zimmermann’s — but, for me, Tetzlaff’s extra degree of incisive brilliance and fierce elegance trumped them both. The intensity Valcuha drew from the CSO’s multihued and translucent textures was in keeping with the soloist’s purposes. No wonder orchestra members joined the audience in awarding Tetzlaff the heartiest of ovations.
Tetzlaff provides the highlight in CSO’s lightish Viennese program
Chicago Classical Review, Lawrence A. Johnson, 02.06..2017
[…] The evening led off with Franz Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 85 (“Le reine”). Haydn remains the most inexplicably neglected of the great composers, likely because his witty and urbane music is viewed by many–unfairly–as too cheerful and uncomplicated for our dark and cynical times.Valčuha directed a performance of Haydn’s Symphony No. 85 “Le reine” that was trim, well-balanced and alert to dynamic markings, with worthy vitality in the finale. Yet too much of the performance was literal and straight-faced, missing an essential wit and Haydnesque charm.
The outlier in this program was the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Karol Szymanowski, which provided the highlight of the evening. Composed in 1916, the Polish composer’s concerto was given its CSO premiere by the great Paul Kochanski–who inspired its composition–in 1928 under Frederick Stock. Cast in a single movement of 23 minutes, the work is characteristic of Szymanowski’s perfumed late Romanticism. Though attractive in its lyrical languor, the concerto remains an unconvincing hybrid of Debussy and Scriabin, with a whiff of Rachmaninoff without the tunes.
Still Szymanowski’s work can be undeniably effective in the right hands and with Christian Tetzlaff as solo protagonist such was the case. Even playing from a score, the soloist was fully engaged in the concerto’s restless rhapsodic style. The German violinist gave a wholly compelling take on this unwieldy piece, investing the virtuosic bursts with his singular brand of bristly bravura and leaning into the surging lines with a slender, focused tone that skirted the schmaltz. Valčuha’s tight yet flexible accompaniment was finely balanced throughout, in close synch with his soloist. Teztlaff was warmly applauded for his performance by audience and orchestra alike.
Brahms The Violin Sonatas
Klassik Heute, Christof Jetzschke, 04.08.2016
Lars Vogt bringt es wunderbar auf den Punkt, wenn er das Doppelbödige oder die Doppeldeutigkeit der drei so nach innen gewandten, von Gefühlsschwankungen und einer zerbrechlichen melodischen Schönheit durchzogenen Brahmsschen Violinsonaten als „melancholisches Glück“ und „heitere Traurigkeit“ bezeichnet.
Um es gleich zu sagen: Ich kenne keine Aufnahme, die weder in der Innigkeit der Kopf- und Mittelsätze noch in der leidenschaftlichen Virtuosität und Dramatik des Finales der d-Moll-Sonate op. 108 genau dies so natürlich und gleichzeitig mit einer derart elektrisierenden Innigkeit abbildet, wie es dem Geiger Christian Tetzlaff und seinem kongenialen Klavierpartner Lars Vogt gelingt – in einer sehr persönlichen Lesart, die dem Bekannten doch immer wieder Überraschungsmomente entlockt. Man spürt, die Zwei müssen sich und der Welt nichts mehr beweisen. Sie sind einfach nur bei sich und ganz bei Brahms. Eine sprachmächtigere, so detailgenaue und dabei doch so wunderbar frei atmende Deutung ist mir tatsächlich nicht bekannt. Sei es im empfindsamen Adagio der Sonate Nr. 1 G-Dur op. 78 oder im kraftvoll vorwärtsdrängenden Presto agitato der Sonate Nr. 3 d-Moll op. 108 – was Christian Tetzlaff und Lars Vogt präsentieren, ist nicht weniger als eine glückliche Synthese aus leuchtkräftiger Klangfülle, Innerlichkeit, emotionaler Dringlichkeit und rhetorischem Feinschliff. Kraftmeierei, übermäßiges Schwelgen oder überbetonte Schwermut ist den Beiden fremd. Vielmehr scheinen sie sich von der jeweiligen Innenspannung der Sonaten und des Scherzos des F.A.E.-Sonate WoO 2 zwar davontragen zu lassen; trotzdem umweht ihre Brahms-Sicht mehr als nur ein Hauch von Seriosität und intuitivem Wissen um die herauszuarbeitenden Beziehungen zwischen den großen Bögen und dem motivischen Mikrokosmos. An diesem lebendigen, sich in den Gehörgängen festsetzenden Dialog und dieser für mich fast schon magischen gestalterischen Reife werden sich alle noch kommenden Einspielungen der Brahms-Violinsonaten messen lassen müssen.
BRAHMS Violin Sonatas Nos 1-3 CD-review
GRAMOPHONE – Recording of the month, Andrew Farach-Colton, 09.2016
Christian Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt first recorded the three Brahms violin sonatas for EMI at the 2002 ‘Spannungen’ chamber music festival in Heimbach, Germany – spirited, occasionally restless performances that thrillingly capture the adrenalin rush of a live concert. This new studio account from Ondine preserves much of the ‘incisiveness, urgency and lightness of touch’ that Edward Greenfield justly praised in his review of that EMI disc, along with a breathtaking balance of poise and daring.
As in their live recording, Tetzlaff and Vogt favour flowing tempi, yet there’s an even greater sense of spontaneity and elasticity here than before – as the opening movement of Op 78 illustrates so beautifully. Although it’s marked Vivace ma non troppo, the players start out serenely; indeed, there’s little if any sense ofvivace at all. Rather, one becomes aware of a growing ebullience. It’s signalled subtly at the beginning, as liquid streams of quavers gather into a gentle cascade, and reaches fruition only in the coda, which surges exultantly. In between, though, there’s an ebb and flow, a multiplicity of swirling currents that are somehow contained as an uninterrupted, unified body. Listen at around 2’58”, where the instruments trade searching, syncopated melody and breathless accompaniment. Tetzlaff and Vogt imbue this intertwining dance with tender intimacy, and the resulting feeling of anticipation is exquisite.
In numerous passages throughout the programme, in fact, the players find ways to hold even the most expansive melodies or phrases taut (but not rigidly so) and thereby create enormous tension. There’s a section near the end of the Adagio of Op 78 (at 5’17”) where – after some intricate figuration – the texture suddenly becomes drastically simplified to something like a distantly remembered, decelerated march. Vogt doesn’t stiffen up here and grip the dotted rhythms, as György Sebők does, say, in his classic Philips recording with Arthur Grumiaux, but instead seems to feel his way forwards, step by step. Sebők’s approach dissipates the emotional pressure, Vogt’s heightens it. And when, over this slow-moving procession, Tetzlaff entreats with a warm, beacon-like song, the effect is mesmeric.
Tetzlaff revisits Dvořák, and the experience shows
ClassicsToday.com by David Hurwitz, 27th March 2016
[…] Tetzlaff’s focus on the long line and, for example, the smoothest possible transition between the first movement and the adagio, gives the piece an exceptional feeling of unity for all the passion; and the finale truly dances, with crisper than usual articulation supported by Storgards’ firmly rhythmic accompaniment.
Press
Adès and Tetzlaff soar in Sibelius with BSO; a mixed array of modern works from TMC
Boston Classical Review, by Lawrence Budmen, July 23, 2018
[..] Christian Tetzlaff was the exceptional soloist in Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in D minor. Tetzlaff is an artist with the ability to revitalize even the most familiar repertoire and his was anything but a once-overlightly traversal of Sibelius’ showpiece. In the first movement, Tetzlaff’s soaring tone and transparent lines and bow strokes made every note sound with absolute clarity. The violinist’s sound was pure and consistently imbued with a changing array of colors and dynamic shades. He was unafraid to bend a phrase and intonation was right on the mark, even in the instrument’s highest range when he attacked the cadenza with abandon.Tetzlaff shaped the yearning melody of the Adagio in long, emotionally expressive phrasing. The final Allegro was taken at a brisk pace with Tetzlaff’s bow bouncing on the strings in clipped rhythm. He breezed through the treacherous double stops while remaining attendant to every nuance and variation of volume and shape.
Adès was a full partner, in synch with Tetzlaff and drawing a sumptuous orchestral backdrop. The warmth and sweetness of the wind playing was particularly excellent. A long standing, cheering ovation (even by Tanglewood standards) brought Tetzlaff repeatedly back to the stage for well deserved curtain calls.[..]
Salonen was born to conduct Sibelius
The New Yorker by Russel Platt, June 13, 2017
[..] As it happens, the (Sibelius) Violin Concerto (1903-05) was also on the program, with Christian Tetzlaff out front. Tetzlaff is, for my money, the finest violinist performing before the public today: he can invest a composition with a rich inner life while keeping the outward details of performance – intonation, power of projection, consistency of phrasing – completely invulnerable. [..] Tetzlaff, however, weighted the three movements evenly, making it an ideal companion for the Seventh Symphony that the older and wiser composer would eventually produce.Demon Fiddling
The New York Times, by James R. Oestreich, 07.06.
Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Met Orchestra New York / Esa-Pekka Salonen
[…] Then came something completely different: Sibelius’s towering Violin Concerto, in a blazing interpretation by Christian Tetzlaff. Mr. Tetzlaff, who always plays with pure and incisive tone, also showed a volatile temperament that surprised even a longtime admirer, and Mr. Salonen only encouraged his intrepid explorations.[…]
Surely I wasn’t the only one hoping for an encore of calming Bach from the violinist Christian Tetzlaff after his hair-raising account of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in the final concert of the Met’s series at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Tetzlaff, long known as a meticulous and refined virtuoso, had just displayed a newfound excitability, sawing madly in the increasingly charged ending of the first movement, even broadly if not audibly stamping a foot. That outburst behind him, he answered the raucous applause with an encore, all right, but instead of playing Bach, he screwed up the tension even more with the nervous, restless Prestissimo finale of Bartok’s solo sonata: brilliant.
Guest conductor Juraj Valcuha holds CSO in firm command
Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein, 02.06.2017
[…] Karol Szymanowski’s 1916 Violin Concerto No. 1, dating from 131 years later, inhabits an altogether different sound world. The subtly colored impressionism of Debussy and Ravel, and the sensuous exoticism of Scriabin, commingle to otherworldly effect. Yet the Polish composer had a way of absorbing all influences into a musical persona very much his own.By rights this bejeweled masterpiece should turn up in concert a lot more often than it does; the last time the CSO ventured it was 2009. All the more reason, then, to be grateful for the gorgeous performance it received from Christian Tetzlaff, one of the score’s most dedicated advocates.
The German violinist is a familiar figure from his numerous appearances at Ravinia and Grant Park, and with all of them I have never known him to give less than a fully committed performance. Is there a more physically engaged fiddle virtuoso before the public? On Thursday you could almost smell the rosin dust coming off his bow as he pressed deep into his violin strings, bringing out Szymanowski’s aching lyricism, his bright, intense sound soaring high above the staff.
CSO audiences have heard several fine accounts of this concerto in recent decades — think of Nikolaj Znaider’s and Frank Peter Zimmermann’s — but, for me, Tetzlaff’s extra degree of incisive brilliance and fierce elegance trumped them both. The intensity Valcuha drew from the CSO’s multihued and translucent textures was in keeping with the soloist’s purposes. No wonder orchestra members joined the audience in awarding Tetzlaff the heartiest of ovations.
Tetzlaff provides the highlight in CSO’s lightish Viennese program
Chicago Classical Review, Lawrence A. Johnson, 02.06..2017
[…] The evening led off with Franz Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 85 (“Le reine”). Haydn remains the most inexplicably neglected of the great composers, likely because his witty and urbane music is viewed by many–unfairly–as too cheerful and uncomplicated for our dark and cynical times.Valčuha directed a performance of Haydn’s Symphony No. 85 “Le reine” that was trim, well-balanced and alert to dynamic markings, with worthy vitality in the finale. Yet too much of the performance was literal and straight-faced, missing an essential wit and Haydnesque charm.
The outlier in this program was the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Karol Szymanowski, which provided the highlight of the evening. Composed in 1916, the Polish composer’s concerto was given its CSO premiere by the great Paul Kochanski–who inspired its composition–in 1928 under Frederick Stock. Cast in a single movement of 23 minutes, the work is characteristic of Szymanowski’s perfumed late Romanticism. Though attractive in its lyrical languor, the concerto remains an unconvincing hybrid of Debussy and Scriabin, with a whiff of Rachmaninoff without the tunes.
Still Szymanowski’s work can be undeniably effective in the right hands and with Christian Tetzlaff as solo protagonist such was the case. Even playing from a score, the soloist was fully engaged in the concerto’s restless rhapsodic style. The German violinist gave a wholly compelling take on this unwieldy piece, investing the virtuosic bursts with his singular brand of bristly bravura and leaning into the surging lines with a slender, focused tone that skirted the schmaltz. Valčuha’s tight yet flexible accompaniment was finely balanced throughout, in close synch with his soloist. Teztlaff was warmly applauded for his performance by audience and orchestra alike.
Brahms The Violin Sonatas
Klassik Heute, Christof Jetzschke, 04.08.2016
Lars Vogt bringt es wunderbar auf den Punkt, wenn er das Doppelbödige oder die Doppeldeutigkeit der drei so nach innen gewandten, von Gefühlsschwankungen und einer zerbrechlichen melodischen Schönheit durchzogenen Brahmsschen Violinsonaten als „melancholisches Glück“ und „heitere Traurigkeit“ bezeichnet.
Um es gleich zu sagen: Ich kenne keine Aufnahme, die weder in der Innigkeit der Kopf- und Mittelsätze noch in der leidenschaftlichen Virtuosität und Dramatik des Finales der d-Moll-Sonate op. 108 genau dies so natürlich und gleichzeitig mit einer derart elektrisierenden Innigkeit abbildet, wie es dem Geiger Christian Tetzlaff und seinem kongenialen Klavierpartner Lars Vogt gelingt – in einer sehr persönlichen Lesart, die dem Bekannten doch immer wieder Überraschungsmomente entlockt. Man spürt, die Zwei müssen sich und der Welt nichts mehr beweisen. Sie sind einfach nur bei sich und ganz bei Brahms. Eine sprachmächtigere, so detailgenaue und dabei doch so wunderbar frei atmende Deutung ist mir tatsächlich nicht bekannt. Sei es im empfindsamen Adagio der Sonate Nr. 1 G-Dur op. 78 oder im kraftvoll vorwärtsdrängenden Presto agitato der Sonate Nr. 3 d-Moll op. 108 – was Christian Tetzlaff und Lars Vogt präsentieren, ist nicht weniger als eine glückliche Synthese aus leuchtkräftiger Klangfülle, Innerlichkeit, emotionaler Dringlichkeit und rhetorischem Feinschliff. Kraftmeierei, übermäßiges Schwelgen oder überbetonte Schwermut ist den Beiden fremd. Vielmehr scheinen sie sich von der jeweiligen Innenspannung der Sonaten und des Scherzos des F.A.E.-Sonate WoO 2 zwar davontragen zu lassen; trotzdem umweht ihre Brahms-Sicht mehr als nur ein Hauch von Seriosität und intuitivem Wissen um die herauszuarbeitenden Beziehungen zwischen den großen Bögen und dem motivischen Mikrokosmos. An diesem lebendigen, sich in den Gehörgängen festsetzenden Dialog und dieser für mich fast schon magischen gestalterischen Reife werden sich alle noch kommenden Einspielungen der Brahms-Violinsonaten messen lassen müssen.
BRAHMS Violin Sonatas Nos 1-3 CD-review
GRAMOPHONE – Recording of the month, Andrew Farach-Colton, 09.2016
Christian Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt first recorded the three Brahms violin sonatas for EMI at the 2002 ‘Spannungen’ chamber music festival in Heimbach, Germany – spirited, occasionally restless performances that thrillingly capture the adrenalin rush of a live concert. This new studio account from Ondine preserves much of the ‘incisiveness, urgency and lightness of touch’ that Edward Greenfield justly praised in his review of that EMI disc, along with a breathtaking balance of poise and daring.
As in their live recording, Tetzlaff and Vogt favour flowing tempi, yet there’s an even greater sense of spontaneity and elasticity here than before – as the opening movement of Op 78 illustrates so beautifully. Although it’s marked Vivace ma non troppo, the players start out serenely; indeed, there’s little if any sense ofvivace at all. Rather, one becomes aware of a growing ebullience. It’s signalled subtly at the beginning, as liquid streams of quavers gather into a gentle cascade, and reaches fruition only in the coda, which surges exultantly. In between, though, there’s an ebb and flow, a multiplicity of swirling currents that are somehow contained as an uninterrupted, unified body. Listen at around 2’58”, where the instruments trade searching, syncopated melody and breathless accompaniment. Tetzlaff and Vogt imbue this intertwining dance with tender intimacy, and the resulting feeling of anticipation is exquisite.
In numerous passages throughout the programme, in fact, the players find ways to hold even the most expansive melodies or phrases taut (but not rigidly so) and thereby create enormous tension. There’s a section near the end of the Adagio of Op 78 (at 5’17”) where – after some intricate figuration – the texture suddenly becomes drastically simplified to something like a distantly remembered, decelerated march. Vogt doesn’t stiffen up here and grip the dotted rhythms, as György Sebők does, say, in his classic Philips recording with Arthur Grumiaux, but instead seems to feel his way forwards, step by step. Sebők’s approach dissipates the emotional pressure, Vogt’s heightens it. And when, over this slow-moving procession, Tetzlaff entreats with a warm, beacon-like song, the effect is mesmeric.
Tetzlaff revisits Dvořák, and the experience shows
ClassicsToday.com by David Hurwitz, 27th March 2016
[…] Tetzlaff’s focus on the long line and, for example, the smoothest possible transition between the first movement and the adagio, gives the piece an exceptional feeling of unity for all the passion; and the finale truly dances, with crisper than usual articulation supported by Storgards’ firmly rhythmic accompaniment.
