“Christian Tetzlaff [was] so completely inside the score’s majesty, intimacy and remoteness that he didn’t drop a stitch when a string snapped about four minutes in, with him seizing the leader’s violin to take him through to just before the cadenza [of Sibelius’ Violin Concerto]. The rapport between him and Ticciati was intense, with the first movement spellbinding in the beautifully geared shifts of retreat and advance between soloist and orchestra. (…) his is the sort of command that makes both technical and interpretative challenges just melt away. The slow movement showed off the beauties of his tone, while his undemonstrative performance style supports a white-hot musical imagination and intelligence. The rhythmic tautness of the Allegro Finale (with the ma non tanto qualifier put on the back burner) was balanced vertiginously between momentum and delirium, Tetzlaff on incandescent form. It was one of those performances where you pinch yourself to check something so thrilling and profound had really happened. His encore, some penetratingly introspective Bach, only compounded Tetzlaff’s impact and insight.”

“With Christian Tetzlaff up front, however, the primacy of the soloist is assured (…) with playing of ferocious accuracy throughout an almost unbroken sequence of urgent, keening recitatives exploiting the instrument’s full range. (…) Tetzlaff brought impressive definition to the closing pages [of the Birtwistle Violin Concerto] as the soloist is absorbed, Berg-like, within the onward passage of orchestral time. A commercial recording with these forces is urgently needed.”

“[Christian and Tanja Tetzlaff] gave an astonishing performance – gruff, when it needed to be, vulnerable too, with natural, unforced communication between them, honing in on the [Brahms’ Double] Concerto’s singular mix of joy and tragedy.”

“When Christian Tetzlaff took up the fugue movement in Bach’s Sonata No. 2 for solo violin, early on in his recital at Davies Hall, an almost eerie sense that he was not alone onstage took hold. (…) In carving out the movement’s theme and densely wrought developments over a softly pulsing ostinato, Tetzlaff seemed to become two performers at once, so distinctly were the musical lines drawn and interwoven. One body, it seemed, couldn’t possibly contain all that technical skill and talent. Those attributes were on ample and often jaw-dropping display at Davies [Hall].”

“Tetzlaff was simply electrifying, making his way through the score’s most daunting passagework with equal parts technical mastery and interpretive fire.”

“Purity and security, perspective and spaciousness. … The violinist Christian Tetzlaff made the hoarse, occluded acoustic of the Queen Elizabeth Hall sing. His recital of unaccompanied sonatas and partitas by Bach and Bartók moved between introspection and savage expressivity in athletic dances, votive arias, enigmatic fugues and dusty laments from two centuries.”

“Christian Tetzlaff, more than any other violinist around today, is utterly attuned to Schumann’s idiom in these later works.”