Christian Tetzlaff is a German violinist and teacher born (in Hamburg)
on April 24, 1966. As was Joseph
Szigeti, he is known for his intellectual approach to playing, though that is a
very limiting characterization of his style.
He is also one of the few (male) violinists who does not wear casual
clothing when performing and does not make an issue of appearing “non-elitist”
by wearing casual clothes when he performs.
Joshua Bell, Leonidas Kavakos, Stefan Jackiw, Gilles Apap, and Nigel
Kennedy (among others) have long-ago abandoned the formal attire of a traditional
concert violinist (white tie and tails) in favor of grungy and casual
clothes. His three siblings are also
professional musicians, as were all four Spivakovsky brothers. He is also rather unique in that he favors a
modern violin to his Stradivarius. Tetzlaff
did not enter a conservatory as a child, as have many violinists before
him. He took up the violin at age 6 but
proceeded to get a regular academic education.
At age 14, he made his orchestral debut playing the Beethoven
concerto. After that, he studied with
Uwe-Martin Haiberg at the Lubeck Music School – Lubeck is about 40 miles north
of Hamburg. In 1985, he came to the U.S.
to study with Walter Levin (pupil of Ivan Galamian) at the University of
Cincinnati. He was 19 years old. He has subsequently played with virtually
every major orchestra in the world and has given recitals in the most important
venues as well. Though his discography
is not extensive, every one of his recordings has been highly praised. There are many classical music lovers who
consider him underrated by critics and the general public. The same thing has been said many times of
Pinchas Zukerman. YouTube has several
videos of his performances. Here is one
with the Brahms concerto. Tetzlaff is
the only violinist I know who regularly plays all of the Bach Partitas in one
single program. Several others do play
all of the Paganini Caprices in a single recital but he prefers doing that with
Bach. Tetzlaff organized the Tetzlaff
String Quartet (with Elisabeth Kufferath, Hanna Weinmeister, and
Tonja Tetzlaff) in 1994. He was 28 years
old. Since 2002, his violin of choice
has been one by German Luthier, Peter Greiner.
It sounds like a Stradivarius, if not better. Leonidas Kavakos also owns a Greiner
violin. Tetzlaff teaches at the Kronberg
Academy, situated near Frankfurt, Germany.
A famous quote by Tetzlaff goes like this: “Trying to turn lead into
gold is nothing compared to taking something mechanical like an instrument – a
string and a bow - and using it to evoke a human soul, preserved through the
centuries.”
Franziska Hoelscher is a German violinist born (in Heidelberg) on November 9, 1982 (Heifetz was 81 years old.) She began her studies at the age of five, her first teacher being Dietmar Mantel (Academy of Music, Mannheim, Germany.) Even though Hoelscher is a concert violinist with a very extensive repertoire, she has a very strong affinity to chamber music and has studied with various artists who are very closely connected to that intimate musical art. While she is now completing her conservatory studies with violinist Nora Chastain (violinist - granddaughter of American composer Roy Harris) in Berlin, she has already embarked on a concertizing career. Many other violinists before her have done the same thing, including Joshua Bell, Salvatore Accardo, Chloe Hanslip, Leonid Kogan, and Midori. Hoelscher’s debut took place in 1999 at the Philharmonie of Cologne. She was 16 years old. Her teachers have included Ulf Hoelscher (not related to her), Thomas Brandis (former concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic) Ana Chumachenko (professor at the Advanced Music School in Munich), Rainer Kussmaul (former concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic), and Walter Levin (first violin of the LaSalle Quartet), among several others. In 1999, she won the international Radio Competition in Prague – her first important win in a competition. That was followed by her winning different prizes and awards at international competitions in the Netherlands, in Berlin, and at the Competition of the German Conservatories. For many years she was the first violinist of the Viktor Ullmann Quartet, named after the Austrian composer who was a sad casualty of a concentration camp in 1944. She has performed with Adrian Brendel (cellist, son of pianist Alfred Brendel), Ivry Gitlis (violinist), Martin Helmchen (pianist), Sebastian Manz (clarinetist), and Gustav Rivinius (cellist), among many other artists. Many of her performances as soloist and chamber musician have taken place at the Philharmonie in Berlin (home of the Berlin Philharmonic), Philharmonie in Cologne, the Konzerthaus (Berlin), the Gewandhaus (Leipzig), the Liederhalle (Stuttgart), and the Rudolfinum in Prague. She has already concertized throughout Europe, Asia, and the U.S. (New York, Washington D.C., Boston, etc.) Hoelscher has also performed and recorded for many radio and television networks in Germany, Italy, and Czechoslovakia. Classical artists in Europe are fortunate to have radio and television as additional venues whereas in the U.S., these are totally closed to our solo violinists and other classical musicians. Alongside her concert performances, she has been a part of the Rhapsody in School organization founded by Lars Vogt (pianist), which is committed to bringing classical music into schools. Her 2011 agenda includes her graduation, exploring new music, and expanded concertizing. Hoelscher plays a very rare violin – a Daniel Parker (1717.)
