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Unforgettable Four Hands New York
Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
04/06/2024 - & April 4 (Ithaca), 5 (Washington), 7 (Boston), 2024
Leos Janácek: Violin Sonata
Győrgy Kurtág: Tre pezzi, Op. 14e
Béla Bartók: Violin Sonata No.2, Sz. 76
Thomas Adčs: Suite from The Tempest, Op. 22
Johannes Brahms: Violin Sonata No.3, Op. 108
Christian Tetzlaff (Violinist), Kirill Gerstein (Pianist) 
C. Tetzlaff/K. Gerstein
“The violin part of the violin sonatas... is extraordinarily difficult, and it is only a violinist of the top class who has any chance of learning them...
Béla Bartók
“I hear music constantly in the empty silence, while the intellect is still and all emotional strings are relaxed.”
Leos Janácek
Forget for the moment that Christian Tetzlaff and Kirill Gerstein are two of the most brilliant musicians on the concert stage today. Instead, consider the first half of last night’s program was like a dream, a hallucinatory trio of strange languages and stranger notes.
The original program conventionally paired Janácek and Brahms, Kurtág with Bartók. By changing the order, that first half was a metamorphosis of musical notes. Janácek’s notes on the suspenseful cusp of the Czech language. Followed by three bijoux, solitary notes by the Hungarian Győrgy Kurtág. This followed by a Bartók Sonata which breathed Magyar emotions in every note–yet didn’t allow a single Hungarian quote.
Added to that the genius of Tetzlaff and Gerstein together. Regretfully, all the pieces were titled for violin itself. That was hardly the case. Mr. Gerstein was an equal partner in every sense of the word.
For the rarely-played Janácek Sonata, Mr. Tetzlaff’s range went from the unpredictable opening movement to that rarity in Janácek: an actual melody in the Ballada. Yet it was the very first note where he took sudden control, and never let it go.
Christian Tetzlaff created the single voice–aggressive, brusque–with that piano. And in a single glorious moment, took that “tune” and suddenly lifted the simplicity to a magnificent upper range development.
The three works by Győrgy Kurtág (who at the age of 98 is still plugging away) were rarities indeed, pieces inspired by a visit to a eurhythmic class. Not that one would have guessed dancing here. Rather, for the first two pieces, Gerstein and Tetzlaff engaged in micro-variations of soft, to softer to the ultimate softness.
One of course had to compare this with the Webern Six Pieces, played two nights ago by the New York Philharmonic. Webern used a huge orchestra for his minuscule sounds. Kurtág, with only violin and piano (originally violin and a Hungarian lute!!) created soul‑searching measures. And in the final “From a Distance”, Mr. Tetzlaff created, in hardly 30 seconds, a tonal farewell ending on a pppppp farewell high note.
The Bartók Second Violin Sonata fit in perfectly with these two openers. Granted the title should have included piano, because these two soloists seemed to play two totally different pieces).
As for Mr. Tetzlaff, in both movements, he had changed since I heard him a few years ago. At that time, his violin was like the most beautiful machine. Not in the effect, but the ease, almost insouciance of the playing.
Here, the music seemed to pierce his soul. The first movement was strange, very Hungarian (without an iota of quotation) and clear. The second continuous movement was a frenzy of notes, double-stopping, whizzing down all the strings.
And unlike the first time I heard him, he actually danced through the giusto tempos. Not the showy swaying of some fiddlers, but a visceral relationship with the notes themselves.
The second half opened with Thomas Adčs’ three songs from his opera The Tempest. The songs were short, genial, one piece quoted from a Brahms piano Intermezzo (Adčs often quotes from others), they all made one want to see the opera.
Before the Brahms Third Sonata, one had time to consider why Christian Tetzlaff is such a magnetic figure in an era when young pyrotechnical violinists rule the concert stage. We start with Mr. Tetzlaff’s ear‑popping technique. Other stars have it, but Christian Tetzlaff makes you want to hear more and more–not simply listen in awe. Then his instinctive phrasing genius. Not only in the Bartók, but even those speck-measures in the Kurtág.
Finally a tone which is of pure silver (or gold: take your choice). Even in the most aggressive music, Mr. Tetzlaff never lets a single note simply dangle dully waiting for the next cadenza.
Their Brahms Third Sonata might not be to everybody’s liking. From the start, this was a violin‑piano duet which eschewed Brahms lyricism and went for a muscular command. Accelerating, surging, pushing both tempo and vibrato, this was a Brahms that even Wagner might have admired.
The slow movement was never dreamy. Simply playing that melody was enough. Brahms called the scherzo Un poco presto e con sentimento. I doubt if any fiddler understands that, nor did Messrs Tetzlaff and Gerstein attempt it. Save for the middle, this was close to intense, even searing.
The finale was faultless. Imaginative, joyful, triumphant, offered with both perfection and seeming spontaneity. One felt at the climax not wonderful Tetzlaff and Gerstein–but what wonderful Brahms! And what wonderful music.
Harry Rolnick
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