Christian Tetzlaff
violin
Christian Tetzlaff has been one of the most sought-after violinists and most exciting musicians on the classical music scene for many years.
Concerts with him often turn into an existential experience for both the interpreter and the audience; suddenly old familiar works appear in a completely new light. In addition, he frequently turns his attention to forgotten masterpieces such as Joseph Joachim’s Violin Concerto which he successfully championed, and he also attempts to bring important new works into the repertoire such as Jörg Widmann’s Violin Concerto, which he premiered in 2013. He has an unusually extensive repertoire and performs approximately 100 concerts every year.
Christian Tetzlaff is regularly invited to be the Artist in Residence with orchestras and at events in order to be able to present his musical interpretations over a longer period of time, which has been the case with the Berliner Philharmoniker and at Wigmore Hall in London. In the 2018/2019 season he was the Artist in Residence of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and the Dresdner Philharmonie at the same time.
During his career Christian Tetzlaff has appeared as a guest with major orchestras around the world, such as the Wiener Philharmoniker, the New York Philharmonic, the Concertgebouworkest and all of London’s leading orchestras. He has been working with conductors including Sergiu Celibidache, Bernard Haitink, Lorin Maazel and Kurt Masur and also, more recently, Barbara Hannigan, Christoph von Dohnányi, Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Andris Nelsons, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Michael Tilson Thomas, to name but a few.
Christian Tetzlaff founded his own string quartet in 1994, and until now chamber music is still as important to him as his work as a soloist with and without the orchestra. The Tetzlaff Quartett received the Diapason d’Or in 2015, and the trio with sister Tanja Tetzlaff and pianist Lars Vogt was nominated for a Grammy award. In this season he will appear in this trio at the Rheingau Musik Festival, amongst others. In duo with Lars Vogt, he will embark on an extensive tour through the USA and appear at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and, also in duo, he performs with Alexander Longquich in the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin.
Christian Tetzlaff has also received numerous awards for his CD recordings, including the “Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik” in 2018, the “Diapason d’Or” in July 2018 and the Midem Classical Award in 2017. The new Ondine recording of Beethoven and Sibelius violin concertos with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Robin Ticciati is highly anticipated in autumn 2019.
Of special significance is his solo recording of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas, which he has recorded for the third time and was released in September 2017. The Strad magazine praised this recording as “an attentive and lively answer to the beauty of Bach’s solos”. They have also become an integral part of his concert calendar: he opened the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in July 2019 with a solo recital in the sold-out main hall of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and will also present these solo works in St. Petersburg, Moscow and the Philharmonie Berlin.
Christian Tetzlaff plays a violin made by the German violin maker Peter Greiner and teaches regularly at the Kronberg Academy.
