Brahms Viotti

This album by violinist Christian Tetzlaff and cellist Tanja Tetzlaff together with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Paavo Järvi, is dedicated in the memory of their longtime artistic partner, pianist Lars Vogt (1970–2022). At the heart of this album is Brahms, one of Lars Vogt’s favourite composers, and his late orchestral masterpiece, the Double Concerto. Brahms himself had admired one of Viotti’s violin concertos so much that he included material from the Violin Concerto no.22 into his work. With Christian Tetzlaff’s recording of the Violin Concerto, this album finally brings these two works together. Also included is Dvořák’s beautiful Silent Woods for cello and orchestra, a work by another composer that was very close to Lars Vogt’s heart.

This is a delightful disc. The minor problem is that listening to the Fiorillo, one feels that one has heard this all before. Mind you, it is a lovely piece with Mozartian elegance and super hunting horn sounds. It is very fresh in sound and hugely enjoyable. Federigo Fiorillo was born in Germany in 1755 and his date of death is uncertain. It is thought to be after 1823. He travelled extensively and wrote much music for the violin some of which may be well known to students today. Apparently he wrote four violin concertos.

"Viotti's A minor concerto is my very special rapture. It is a magnificent piece, from a strange booklet in the invention; as if he fantasizes, it sounds, and everything is masterfully thought and made. If people had a clue that they would get from us drop by drop what they could drink there to their heart's content"

Giovanni Battista Viotti was a man of humble origins who studied with Gaetano Pugnani in the tradition of the Corelli school. By the age of 20 he was already an esteemed violinist, performing concerts in Geneva, Bern, Berlin and Saint Petersburg, and he eventually chose to settle in Paris. However, as a court musician for Marie Antoniette, he was forced to flee to London in 1792, where, a short while later, he was accused of spying on behalf of the Jacobins. He returned to Paris and was celebrated during the Restoration period, but eventually came back to London, where he died in poverty. Compositionally he serves as a bridge between the Classical period and the first signs of Romanticism, and he wrote an impressive 29 concertos for his own instrument, the violin. The 22nd, in A minor, shows his renowned compositional intelligence at its peak. Brahms, by no means known for the generosity of his opinions, wrote in a letter to Clara Schumann: “This concerto… is a magnificent piece, of remarkable freedom in its invention; it sounds as if [Viotti] were fantasising, and everything is masterfully conceived and executed”.