Christian Tetzlaff plays Brahms

At the origin of Brahms' violin concerto was an exceptional violinist, and such a violinist is now playing the work in Winterthur: his name is Christian Tetzlaff, and Joseph Joachim was the name of the violinist and composer for whom Brahms wrote his concerto and to whom it is also dedicated. What's more, the concerto was written in close collaboration with Joachim, and the Hungarian-inspired finale is a tribute to Joachim's own Violin Concerto No. 2 "in Hungarian style," which he had dedicated to Brahms a few years earlier. As the soloist at the premiere of Brahms' concerto, Joachim contributed the solo cadenza, which Christian Tetzlaff still prefers to all other cadenzas today.

One of the intellectual "origins" of the concerto is, of course, Beethoven's great role model, which, not coincidentally, is in the same key. The short orchestral piece "subito con forza," composed by Unsuk Chin (awarded the Siemens Prize, the "Nobel Prize" of music, in 2024) for Beethoven's 250th birthday, refers even more clearly to Beethoven. Here, one can hear various more or less hidden Beethoven "origins," but above all marvel at how Beethoven's gestures are transferred into new music, namely "the enormous contrasts from volcanic eruptions to extreme serenity" that fascinate Unsuk Chin.

Beethoven's Second Symphony offers precisely these contrasts, in an elegant form that does not conceal Beethoven's origins as a pupil of Joseph Haydn, yet is already entirely "Beethoven."

We would like to thank the S. Eustachius Foundation for its generous support of this project.

Program:
Unsuk Chin - "subito con forza" for orchestra
Johannes Brahms - Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major, Op. 77

PAUSE

Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 36

Red Sofa following the concert at the Park Hotel (Comensoli Hall). Gabiz Reichert in conversation with Christian Tetzlaff.