Christian Tetzlaff

Christian Tetzlaff, born in Hamburg in 1966, is a German violinist known for searching, unsentimental interpretations and for a repertoire that runs from Bach’s solo sonatas and partitas to the music of his own time. He studied with Uwe-Martin Haiberg in Lübeck and with Walter Levin in Cincinnati, and came to wide attention in 1988 with performances of Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto in Munich and Cleveland. Since then he has appeared with most of the world’s leading orchestras, and he has championed contemporary concertos by composers such as György Ligeti, Jörg Widmann and Thomas Adès. Chamber music has always been central to his work: in 1994 he founded the Tetzlaff Quartet with his sister, the cellist Tanja Tetzlaff, and for many years he played and recorded with the pianist Lars Vogt. Unusually for a soloist of his standing, he plays a modern instrument, made by the German violin maker Stefan-Peter Greiner.