http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/arts/music/from-christian-tetzlaff-violin-sonatas-and-partitas.html 2014-09-20 01:38:42 From Christian Tetzlaff, Violin Sonatas and Partitas The violinist Christian Tetzlaff revisited the 92nd Street Y on Thursday and the works he performed there in 2009. === The juxtaposition was peculiar, no question. Hearing The analogy is seriously flawed, of course, if only because the player also has to recreate Bach’s lines to begin with, and for many, that is task enough. And, yes, black-and-white performances are common. But Mr. Tetzlaff, who has performed these works many times and recorded them twice, has become a master colorist, injecting nuances of articulation, inflection, bowing and ornamentation: a nudging appoggiatura here, a melodic twist there. He also colors inside the lines very well — but enough of that. This was the season-opening concert at the 92nd Street Y, where Mr. Tetzlaff Indeed, at times he played with outright abandon, whether in tempo, for a blazing account of the Courante Double in the First Partita, or in mood, adding vehemence to the Fugue in the Third Sonata. This was virtuosity of the highest order, though he made no show of it: His stage manner throughout was one of elegant restraint and dispatch. Mr. Tetzlaff needed every ounce of his remarkable composure to get through the Chaconne that ends the Second Partita, the high point in the collection, if not in all of music. As if that movement’s sheer technical challenges were not enough, he had to compete with an ugly noise, a grinding mechanical sound that intruded three times: loudest and longest at the very heart of the piece, a moment of inmost quiet. Astoundingly, Mr. Tetzlaff didn’t miss a beat through any of it. The noise, a spokeswoman for the hall said the next morning, had come from drilling in the basement. As it happens, the matter was made worse because Mr. Tetzlaff had requested beforehand that the air-conditioning be turned off for the night to avoid distracting sound. The end result was to make all the extraneous sounds from inside and outside the hall, and there were many, that much worse. It is surely unfair to wish that Mr. Tetzlaff, after his long, arduous night of Bach and a nerve-rattling incident, had repeated the Chaconne as an encore. I wish it, anyway; it would have made a memorable night wholly unforgettable.