bachtrack.com – By Tristan Labouret, 05 February 2019

Christian Tetzlaff tient le Théâtre des Champs-Élysées dans sa main. Bifurquant directement vers la conclusion de la sarabande sans passer par la reprise, le violoniste conclut son bis en s’effaçant progressivement. Plus que quelques crins, une moitié d’archet. Le son reste pur, le timbre égal. Dernière note. Silence du public qui retient son souffle… avant d’ovationner l’artiste. Une telle emprise d’un musicien sur son public n’est pas chose courante.

Tetzlaff ne vient pas de nulle part. Un peu plus tôt, le violoniste a livré une interprétation époustouflante du Concerto pour violon et orchestre de Sibelius. Souplesse du phrasé (quitte à brouiller le rythme pointé si caractéristique), densité du timbre, intensité du vibrato : dès les premiers instants, il fait montre d’un lyrisme sans concession, sans laisser une seule note inexpressive. Articulés avec une vivacité et une netteté défiant toute concurrence, les traits virtuoses qui suivent impressionnent. Cet engagement total laisse poindre la crainte d’une surchauffe dans les trois mouvements à venir ; il n’y en aura pas. Tetzlaff ne cède pas un pouce du terrain, même dans la cadence, enchaînée à vive allure. Si la démonstration virtuose frôle parfois la caricature – les bariolages conclusifs du premier mouvement laissent par exemple l’orchestre loin derrière – le jeu du violoniste n’est ni accessoire ni artificiel. Gammes, arpèges, accords martelés, toutes ces acrobaties font partie d’une chorégraphie sauvage, interprétée avec une détermination viscérale. Dans les mouvements extrêmes, les passages en octaves sont emblématiques de l’engagement singulier du virtuose : la plupart des violonistes négocient ces obstacles en appuyant la voix grave, ce qui permet de masquer les éventuelles imperfections d’intonation ; rien de tel chez Tetzlaff qui attaque les doubles cordes de manière égale, leur conférant une puissance rarement entendue.

Plus encore que la maîtrise technique, c’est bien la projection sonore qui laisse sans voix. Saluons à cet égard le travail du luthier, Stefan-Peter Greiner, qui montre que les artisans actuels n’ont rien à envier aux maîtres du passé. L’instrument de Tetzlaff a des graves surpuissants, des aigus riches et brillants ; son expressivité évolue harmonieusement suivant le registre, sans céder ni à l’uniformité du timbre ni à l’hétérogénéité des cordes. À chaque fois que le violoniste cherche à intensifier son jeu, le violon répond instantanément, avec une inépuisable profondeur sonore. C’est bien simple : même au plus fort de l’action, jamais le London Philharmonic Orchestra – pourtant généreux – ne surpassera le soliste. […]

seenandheard-international.com – Alan Sanders, 04.02.2019

Tetzlaff and Ticciati have performed together on several occasions, and their rapport clearly showed in this performance of the Sibelius Concerto. Tetzlaff is nothing if not a powerful, zestful player, and the Sibelius suits him perfectly. With his superb technique and pungent tone quality he brought out the first movement’s verve and passion brilliantly. At the work’s reflective beginning he launched his solo part against the quiet orchestral background with a most affecting, yearning quality of sweetness and lyricism, and this made a perfect prelude to the virtuoso passages that the soloist soon encounters.

All seemed absolutely on course, but then a sharp crack indicated that a string on Tetzlaff’s violin had broken. Often in such circumstances the player stops and retreats backstage to re-string his instrument, either beginning again or rejoining the work at a suitable point. But Tetzlaff employed the standard alternative emergency procedure of exchanging his violin with that of the leader, continuing to play the solo part on the leader’s violin, while the leader then played on a colleague’s instrument until that colleague had re-strung the soloist’s violin. This procedure was carried out with such calm aplomb by Tetzlaff, the Leader Pieter Schoeman and Co-leader Kevin Lin that it almost seemed like an everyday occurrence. It is also a tribute to Tetzlaff’s skill that he continued to play brilliantly on a new and quite different-sounding instrument as if he was perfectly familiar with it. For once applause after this movement seemed absolutely appropriate, and Tetzlaff acknowledged it with a bow and a rueful grin.

Seemingly unperturbed, Tetzlaff produced a lovely, pure solo line at the beginning of the slow movement, and his passionate response to the music’s lyrical, soaring lyrical quality and its deep-seated strength was very affecting.

As if let go from the bounds of profound expression, Tetzlaff set off at a cracking pace in the finale, with Ticciati in close accord, and their strong, highly rhythmic account of this movement brought a most characterful account of the work as a whole to a most satisfying conclusion. […]

Saturday, February 02, 2019 Southbank Centre, London – Royal Festival Hall – Reviewed by Peter Reed

Two works beginning on the outer edge of audibility, one greeted with a spontaneous ovation, the other with more considered enthusiasm. Robin Ticciati and the LPO know each other well, and the result in this Sibelius and Bruckner programme was playing of superlative quality.

The pianissimo opening of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto set the bar high for the panoramic scope of big perspectives, and for textures and dynamics ranging from the most evanescent to the uncompromisingly granitic, with a soloist, Christian Tetzlaff, so completely inside the score’s majesty, intimacy and remoteness that he didn’t drop a stitch when a string snapped about four minutes in, with him seizing the leader’s violin to take him through to just before the cadenza.

The rapport between him and Ticciati was intense, with the first movement spellbinding in the beautifully geared shifts of retreat and advance between soloist and orchestra. Ticciati was particularly effective in presenting the tuttis with symphonic weight and presence to spare, and he made plenty of space for Tetzlaff to express a barely credible scale of emotion and character – his is the sort of command that makes both technical and interpretative challenges just melt away. The slow movement showed off the beauties of his tone, while his undemonstrative performance style supports a white-hot musical imagination and intelligence. The rhythmic tautness of the Allegro Finale (with the ma non tanto qualifier put on the back burner) was balanced vertiginously between momentum and delirium, Tetzlaff on incandescent form. It was one of those performances where you pinch yourself to check something so thrilling and profound had really happened. His encore, some penetratingly introspective Bach, only compounded Tetzlaff’s impact and insight. […]

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.[..]

 

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.

The New York Times, by James R. Oestreich, 07.06.2017

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. 

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.

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.