Interview with Violinist Christian Tetzlaff: the Loving Hand of Brahms

November 30, 2023, 9:59 AM · For the German violinist Christian Tetzlaff, the music of Johannes Brahms has been a lifelong focus and a source of solace and companionship. It also is deeply connected to a dear friend and significant musical partner that Tetzlaff recently lost: the pianist Lars Vogt.

In late 2022 Vogt died of cancer at the age of 51. After his death, Tetzlaff told VAN magazine: "Brahms is the composer who connected Lars and I the most all these years and who allowed us to say goodbye in such a beautiful way." Tetzlaff had performed extensively with Vogt, and much of their work was devoted to Brahms: they made a 2016 recording featuring all the Brahms Violin Sonatas; and another recording that same year, all the Brahms Trios, along with his sister, the cellist Tanja Tetzlaff.

BELOW: Christian Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt perform Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Major, Op. 78: I. Vivace ma non troppo:

"Brahms has been core repertoire always - I've certainly performed the Brahms Violin Concerto well over 200 times," Tetzlaff told me in a phone interview in late November. Tetzlaff, who has played as a soloist with major orchestras across the world over the course of his multi-decade career, teaches at the Kronberg Academy and lives in Berlin. "With Lars Vogt and my sister (the cellist Tanja Tetzlaff), we played and recorded the Brahms Trios, and we played the complete other chamber music of Brahms - quartets, quintets and everything there is. That's not only because Brahms wrote so much for the instrument, but because he was for us, a central figure of musical expression."

On Dec. 9 and 10 Tetzlaff will once again perform the Brahms Violin Concerto, this time with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and conductor Jaime Martín, and he also will give a master class at the Colburn School on Dec. 8. (Click here for information and concert tickets, and use the code VIOLINIST for 20% off. Click here for free tickets to the master class.)

"Growing older, what we find about the music of Brahms is that it does talk of the pain and the joy of living. But even in his dark pieces, there is still a major element of solace, or companionship, or friendship that links you to him," Tetzlaff said. "In the devastating works of Schubert, for instance, you just feel the cold hand of fate - or something too big and huge, just crashing down on you. And that does have a cathartic effect." But while Brahms may still take you to those dark places, he'll also lead the way out. "The loving hand of Brahms that guides you through it - that is something fantastic to share on a podium," Tetzlaff said.

"And so this has become our focus during this time," Tetzlaff said. "Horrible things happen to all of us, and especially our loss of love. In every person that has made it to 50 - there is loss and pain - in families, in looking at the state of the world, in whatever you connect to," Tetzlaff said. "I see a big part of our raison d'etre as musicians is to find a connection to these emotions and to learn how to deal with them. Sometimes music is just what allows us to go there. Like weeping, that always has the effect for me of a greater acceptance and better ability to deal with it. Especially in COVID times, in war times - we see our role as musicians is more important than before. Brahms is a vital helping hand in this."

Violinist Christian Tetzlaff. Photo by Giorgia Bertazzi.

Is the Brahms Violin Concerto one of he composer's "dark pieces"?

"The violin concerto is quite fascinating because it's the same sunny tonality as his Second Symphony, and it almost shares the main theme with it," Tetzlaff said. The concerto jumps from serene moments and melodies to something that gets lost and wild. "The whole entrance for the violin is one wild fury attack," he said. From the first moment there is a Faustian struggle for the violin: "knowing about beauty but struggling and falling and failing. But the longer the piece goes, the more we are actually allowed to dwell on the sunny side. So that is a beautiful story to tell."

In early 2022, Tetzlaff released a recording of the Brahms Violin Concerto. In the recording he plays his Stefan-Peter Greiner violin, which was made in 2000 and which he has played since 2002. In the concerto, Tetzlaff also plays the cadenzas written by Joseph Joachim, the violinist for whom Brahms wrote the concerto back in 1878. Though many others have written cadenzas for this concerto, and some soloists write their own, Tetzlaff finds Joachim's to be the ideal companion to the piece.

"Joachim was a very able composer, who made a miniature version of this piece" in his cadenza, Tetzlaff said. "Of course, he knew Brahms' language like nobody else and they worked together on the piece. For me, this cadenza is part of the piece. Whereas with many other cadenzas, I find them - as well as they might be composed, they are sometimes just virtuoso vehicles, or a display of compositional artistry. Joachim's cadenzas seem to be an organic part of the piece. I love this."

The premiere of the concerto took place on January 1, 1879, with Joseph Joachim as the soloist and Brahms conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig.

"They did the first performance together, and Joachim played this cadenza," he said, "so it is a touching, direct connection to history."

Joseph Joachim himself also wrote concertos, and he dedicated his own Violin Concerto No. 2 to Brahms. Tetzlaff recorded that concerto in 2008.

Joachim's concerto dedicated to Brahms came before the concerto that Brahms dedicated to Joachim. "In the Brahms concerto there are some some nice little hints at Joachim's piece - like, 'See, I saw that there, and I want you to see it here.'"

Another connection between those concertos is that "the Joachim concerto is in Hungarian style, and a lot of the last movement of the Brahms is, so to say, in the 'Hungarian style,' especially in the violin part," Tetzlaff said. Joseph Joachim, who was Hungarian, certainly influenced Brahms. It's obvious in Brahms' Hungarian Dances, "but it is in many pieces (by Brahms), an infusion of wilder music into his language, which of course otherwise is informed by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann."

When Tetzlaff plays in Los Angeles, he will be playing with a chamber orchestra - does that feel much different from playing this piece with a larger orchestra?

"You win some and you lose some," Tetzlaff said. When it comes to playing with a chamber orchestra, "Brahms did exactly that, he performed all of his symphonies first in this little chapel at Meiningen, where they had six first violins, sometimes eight. Just a small setting, which would put the beauty and architecture of the piece out very clearly, and which would make the chamber music-like interaction between everybody easier."

"But then he also liked to have a huge orchestra and to have his pieces performed in big halls, with an added sense of sound but also an added visual sense of something glorious and big happening," Tetzlaff said. "So both things have have their sides."

If Tetzlaff has played the Brahms Violin Concerto hundreds of times, how does he keep it fresh?

"That's the easiest job on the planet," Tetzlaff said. "I'm not playing it to me, I'm playing it to a new audience each time. I love it to bits, I am totally immersed in the piece. I want everybody to feel about it like I do. It's like telling a fairy tale to children, which - even if you tell it over and over to the same children - you can do it with conviction. It will still be fascinating."

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For more information about Christian Tetzlaff's Dec. 9 and 10 performances of the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) and conductor Jaime Martín, click here (and use the code VIOLINIST for 20% off). To sign up for free tickets for his master class at 11 a.m. Friday December 8 at the Colburn School click here.)

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