DiePresse.com – von Walter Weidringer

[…] Ein Meistergeiger war da am Werk: Im Zentrum des ersten von zwei fast ausschließlich Béla Bartók (1881–1945) gewidmeten Programmen im Wiener Konzerthaus mit dem Philharmonia Orchestra unter Chefdirigent Esa-Pekka Salonen stand das 2. Violinkonzert des ungarischen Komponisten.
Der Solist Christian Tetzlaff verstand es am Montagabend, sogar über jene Stellen, an denen Bartók die solistische Linie in hoch virtuose Partikel zerstäubt, einen herrlichen großen Bogen zu spannen – mit einem durch alle Lagen souverän flexiblen Violinton, der dort voller Intensität aufglühte, da sich zum zartesten Hauch verflüchtigte. Selten noch lagen harsche Kontraste wie tänzerische Anmut und wilde Exaltiertheit, Kantilene und Attacke so nah beisammen und bezogen sich trotzdem so schlüssig aufeinander: eine grandiose und auch entsprechend bejubelte Leistung, die Tetzlaff mit der zugegebenen „Melodia“ aus Bartóks Solosonate untermauerte. […]

Inquirer Music by David Patrick Stearns

[…] They’re getting better. More like even better.
That’s not faint praise when applied to highest-caliber musicians such as Christian Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt.
As an observation on their Kimmel Center recital Thursday, it comes from a high starting point: They previously seemed beyond improvement. Both have been at the top of the classical music profession for years: Violinist Tetzlaff has recorded the Bach sonatas and partitas twice, while Vogt is a pianist who easily encompasses the big-fisted virtuoso repertoire, as well as the smaller-scale program presented here by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.

The centerpiece was Bartok’s 1921 Violin Sonata No. 1, a 35-minute monster of a piece that’s stuffed with ideas, all used with a density and uncompromising sense of invention that one is likely to hear only in the high noon of a composer’s creative life span. The music also contains some of the composer’s darkest moments. From the opening – a cimbalomlike flourish that’s folksy but reaches into strange, uncharted territory – Tetzlaff and Vogt followed all of the piece’s hairpin mutations, giving the music more shades of expression than I ever hoped to hear. Though Tetzlaff has often been one to explore a piece in minute detail, he seemed to have more sound to work with here, a burnished luster not apparent in previous visits. Has he acquired a new violin? No, he plays the same modern instrument, made by Peter Greiner.

His profoundly concentrated treatment of unaccompanied passages in the second movement stand among the great violin moments I’ve heard. What set apart the performance as a whole was the absence of struggle. You don’t realize how much is there until you don’t hear it anymore. Inevitably, past performances have had under-interpreted moments, when the musicians seemed to be saying, “You’re going to have to figure out this part yourself.” On Thursday, all corners were infused with meaning.

Usually, Brahms ends a violin recital; in this one, Violin Sonata No. 2, Op. 100 began the evening in a relatively quiet performance. It’s here that one noticed a difference with Vogt, who has always been able to scale back his sound, but did so while also maintaining a greater richness of tone at the lower end of the dynamic range. Franck’s Violin Sonata encourages performers to give it the hard sell; these two musicians had their own engaging but earnest brand of flamboyance. They were probably better than they seemed at the time; after Bartok, anything would be anticlimactic.

The Independent by Michael Church

[…] You couldn’t wish for a better exponent today than the German violinist Christian Tetzlaff, with his Protean ability to take on the character of whatever work he is playing. The character here was Slavonic, and from his opening flourish he found a genial sweetness of tone. Even when playing pianissimo and stratospherically high, he still dominated the orchestra, with Andris Nelsons calibrating the textures in sympathetic support. In the melody-rich Adagio, Tetzlaff’s job was to sing non-stop, and he did this as one imagines his Central European predecessors must have done a century ago. […]

The Guardian by Tim Ashley

[…] The soloist was Christian Tetzlaff, who let the music live, breathe and sing with a directness few can equal today. Gardner got off to a low-key start with a sedate account of the introduction, though Tetzlaff’s assertive first entry immediately raised the level of the proceedings to the superlative and beyond. Sensational. […]

 

The Arts Desk by Alexandra Coghlan

[…] Tetzlaff’s volume in full spate is tremendous, flung out like the sward arm of a hero to pierce each listener […]

London Evening Standard – by Nick Kimberly

[…] Lucky us; we heard an extraordinary account of Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto. Soloist Christian Tetzlaff has the kind of technique that makes you forget the difficulty of the piece and simply wonder at the range of expression, the variety of tone and colour at his disposal.

While playing, he seemed engaged in an intimate dance with his instrument; in his few moments of silence; he stood like a boxer, tensed for the next round. His sound is big yet not exaggerated; he can play rough, but he also fined things down to a whisper so delicate that it filled the whole hall, turning the heartbreaking melody that opens the second movement into a serenade for lost love.

This is a densely structured concerto that in the right hands – Tetzlaff’s – becomes a free-flowing fantasy. […]

 

Bachtrack.com – by Helen Fraser

[…] If Salonen was the ideal conductor for the challenging Dances, then for Bartók’s intense Second Violin Concerto Christian Tetzlaff was the ideal soloist. In Tetzlaff’s exceedingly capable hands the (significant) technical difficulties melted away, leaving room for a full expression of the desolation and bitterness in the music. The evident understanding between conductor and soloist resulted in a very well balanced performance, although Tetzlaff’s enormous sound was hardly at risk of being lost. This sound was ideal for the rugged outer movements, although some less intense moments would not have come amiss, particularly in the more wistful second movement.[…]

 

Senandheard-international.com – by Christopher Gunning

[…] Christian Tetzlaff was simply outstanding – what an utterly superb musician! I could go into raptures. An enormously big, big tone when needed, an equally fabulous lightness of touch for the more active passages, and throughout a complete understanding of Bartók’s intentions. […]

 

The Guardian – by George Hall

[…] Soloist Christian Tetzlaff’s interpretation wore its technical virtuosity lightly and without any hint of mere display. A highly physical player, his gestures were always the result of his musical impulses, never an illustration of them, and his tone was alive in every note. […]

 

Financial Times – by Richard Fairman

[…] Salonen was joined by Christian Tetzlaff as soloist in Bartók’s Violin Concerto

No.2. Adding some Hungarian fire to his usual clean attack and rhythmic precision, Tetzlaff turned up the heat to scalding effect. […]

The New York Times by Allan Kozinn, December 20, 2010

[…] Mr. Tetzlaff, though best known for his patrician interpretations of Bach and Brahms, was entirely in his element here.

In the slow, mournful aria and eerily focused passacaglia he played with a rich, velvety tone and an irresistible sense of line while sacrificing nothing of Ligeti’s angularity. And in the long, wild cadenza at the end of the work, his playing was sheer, explosive virtuosity. […]

Ionarts (blog) by Charles T. Downey, November 10, 2010

[…] Suspicions that Christian Tetzlaff would deliver a memorable performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto certainly proved true. With Eschenbach’s hand at the rudder, this was an expansive, surprising, and uncompromisingly romantic interpretation, with plenty of rubato applied to both the orchestral and the solo parts. […] my listening life is richer for having heard the piece the way Tetzlaff played it. He approached the score quite freely, adding embellishments and splashy details to the solo part, most notably in his own, very unusual cadenzas. […]

The New York Times by James R. Oestreich, October 31, 2010

[…] Mr. Tetzlaff led some 30 string players through the orchestral version of Schoenberg’s masterpiece of supersaturated Romanticism, “Transfigured Night”, maintaining much of the shimmering, quivering transparency of the original, for six players. […] Mr. Tetzlaff supplied his typical purity of tone and wide-ranging colorations. He also injected original cadenzas, flourishes and ornaments in all three movements. From soloist and orchestra alike, the evening presented versatility on parade. […]