Acrobat

When I first heard him in a recording, he was playing Bach, the solo sonatas, and I immediately sensed that he was not going to take his foot off the pedal. Many are able to give fine performances of these works, but the incandescence, effort and  enthusiasm that I heard in his  playing struck me as unique. I think it was his humanity that  fascinated me. It was as though he was the embodiment of a kind of antithesis of Heifetz, whose extraterrestrial  perfection tends to leave me a little cold: I had heard a mortal presenting the human  hidden behind Bach's perfection, through his own self-lacerating,  doubting, tortured being. The least  interesting thing was how Thomas  Zehetmair was playing the violin,  although he was doing that superbly, needless to say. 

Thomas Zehetmair (Photo: Keith Pattison)

Like Mozart, he was born in Salzburg. Like Mozart, he learned from his  father, although he did say in an interview that “I did not find the violin  quite as early as him. I was more than seven. But I began playing the piano  at three.” Of course, it was the violin, the instrument taught by both parents  that instantly became his prime passion. At the age of sixteen he began  his career as a soloist, and for decades he worked as a partner of the very  finest orchestras and conductors. His expressive playing and his visage  that evoked expressionist paintings enchanted audiences at all points of  the globe. He explored the Earth and also the entire solo repertoire. That  was until 1994, when he decided to found a quartet.

He had had enough of constantly having to explain things to musicians at rehearsals; he wanted it to be enough just to make music with his partners. For that, you have to arrive at rehearsals prepared to the ultimate degree. So they started playing pieces from memory. Whether or not they played  with music was not so important, and for a while he would not allow to advertise their concerts as mere feats of memory. For them, playing from  memory is not a fetish: if they sense it necessary, they bring out the score.  But by playing this way, there is greater eye and ear contact in a concert;  it allows for greater freedom and strengthens spontaneity. The Zehetmair  Quartet is now one of the most important string quartets, open equally to the classical quartet repertoire and 20th century and contemporary works. In 2014 Hanau, the birthplace of Paul Hindemith, awarded them the Hindemith prize. The critics speak in superlatives about the quartet's recordings, while  their concerts are major events in even the busiest concert halls.

Over the last decade and a half, in addition to his career as a violinist and  quartet player, he has also worked as a conductor. For twelve years he led  the Royal Northern Sinfonietta, turning it into a world-class orchestra. He  is the chief conductor of the Paris Chamber Orchestra and is frequently  invited to work with leading ensembles.“When I conduct, I am one hundred  percent a conductor” he said about how he balances his activities. „When I am a soloist, I am one hundred percent a violinist; when I play in the string quartet, I am one hundred percent a quartet player.” And we can add that, in all three cases, he is also one hundred percent a musician. The composer  and conductor Péter Eötvös said once that in his view every artist should take circus performers as their model. If an acrobat does not prepare perfectly  for the performance, and they do not give it their utmost concentration, they risk their lives. Thomas Zehetmair makes music every moment as if he is risking his life.

The article was originally pubished in the January-June 2015 issue of Liszt Academy Concert Magazine