What made you especially want to pair the Beethoven and Sibelius Concertos on this CD?

Those are two pieces I desperately wanted to do with Robin Ticciati. Sometimes, however, your reasoning comes after the fact and then I thought they both stick out in a certain way in time.

Christian Tetzlaff. Photo © Giorga Bertazzi

It’s quite obvious with the Beethoven. If you think of the Mozart concerti or the Viotti concerti that were around, and all of a sudden comes a piece of such epic proportions and grandiosity. I find the same with the Sibelius. Among the more virtuosic concerti, for me it’s the one that goes to incredible depth, and the level of desperation and commitment is comparable only to the Brahms. The Beethoven is still a Classical concerto, but it also points at the beginning of Romanticism. Sibelius still writes tonally, and he still writes a virtuosic violin concerto, but at the same time it is really a piece of the 20th century. People who don’t know the score would be surprised by the excessive markings that he puts on the violin part for instance, and not in the direction of virtuosity...