Thomas Zehetmair (baroque violin)
ECM · 4818558 · 2 hours 6 minutes
Zehetmair recorded these six works once before, decades ago, and coming back to them on baroque violin isn’t some nostalgic victory lap — it’s a genuinely different conversation with the music. The gut strings and lighter bow pull the sound away from Romantic grandeur and toward something rawer, almost speech-like, so the big Chaconne feels less like a monument and more like someone thinking out loud in real time. There’s a roughness here that some listeners might not expect from Bach’s most sacred violin text, but that’s exactly what makes it feel alive rather than embalmed.
Awards:
- The New York Times — Recordings of the Year 2019
- Opus Klassik Awards — 2020 — Winner – Solo Instrumental Recital (Violin)
“Zehetmair is among the most characterful of living violinists, a forceful personality whose ego is employed at the service of whatever music he happens to be playing…It’s not exactly a comfortable…”
— Gramophone Magazine, February 2020
Zehetmair Quartet
ECM · 4721692 · 49 minutes
Schumann’s quartets get overshadowed so often by his piano and vocal writing, but the First and Third here reveal a composer wrestling with Beethoven’s ghost while still sounding completely like himself — nervy, lyrical, and prone to sudden mood swings within a single phrase. The Zehetmair players lean into that instability rather than smoothing it over, so you get real edge-of-the-seat tension alongside moments of aching tenderness. It’s the kind of playing that makes you understand why this swept the Gramophone Awards the year it came out — nothing here feels routine.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — June 2003 — Disc of the Month
- Gramophone Awards — 2003 — Recording of the Year
- Gramophone Awards — 2003 — Winner – Chamber
- Building a Library — January 2019 — Also Recommended
“The Zehetmair Quartet’s coupling focuses the music’s alternating wildness and fragility with altogether unique perception. Theirs is an agitated, combustible and loving view of Schumann, a credible…”
— Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010
Thomas Zehetmair (violin), Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano)Hallé, Sir Mark Elder
Hallé · CDHLL7521 · 74 minutes
Elgar’s Violin Concerto is a strange, sprawling beast — nearly fifty minutes of music that veers between public grandeur and intensely private confession, and it takes a soloist willing to inhabit both moods without flattening either one. Zehetmair does exactly that, finding a kind of restless nobility in the outer movements while letting the slow movement breathe with real tenderness, and Elder’s Hallé match him stride for stride with that famously burnished, autumnal string sound. It swept the Gramophone Award for a reason — this is a performance that trusts the music’s ambiguity rather than trying to resolve it.
Awards:
- Building a Library — January 2012 — First Choice
- Sunday Times — 2010 — Albums of the Year
- Gramophone Awards — 2010 — Winner – Concerto
“Zehetmair…is able to marry impassioned purpose with appreciation of Elgar’s complexity…Mark Elder’s direction is stunning…there’s a warm glow about the Hallé sound that adds an extra strand…”
— BBC Music Magazine, May 2010,5 out of 5 stars
Thomas Zehetmair (violin)
ECM · 4726872 · 64 minutes
Ysaÿe wrote each of these six sonatas as a kind of musical portrait, imagining how Kreisler or Enescu or Szigeti might actually play, and the result is a set that swings wildly between Bach-haunted counterpoint and raw, biting virtuosity. Zehetmair digs into that duality without ever smoothing it over — his tone can turn gritty and urgent in one phrase, then eerily still the next. There’s a real sense of danger in his playing here, like he’s genuinely wrestling with the music rather than just clearing its technical hurdles.
Awards:
- Gramophone Awards — 2005 — Finalist – Instrumental
- Gramophone Magazine — January 2005 — Editor’s Choice
“By tailoring his solo sonatas to fit the styles of six very different violinists Eugène Ysaÿe may have been acting as the ultimate critic, describing his subjects with musical illustrations…”
— Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010
Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano), Thomas Zehetmair (violin) & Clemens Hagen (cello)Chamber Orchestra of Europe & Arnold Schoenberg Chor, Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Warner Classics · 2564606022 · 64 minutes
The Triple Concerto gets a bad rap as Beethoven on autopilot, but Harnoncourt and this trio treat it like a real conversation between three distinct personalities rather than a polite formality. Zehetmair and Hagen dig into their lines with real bite, and Aimard never lets the piano part coast, which honestly makes you wonder why this piece gets dismissed so often. Add the Choral Fantasy with its odd, joyful lurch toward the Ninth Symphony’s big tune, and you get a disc that makes the case for Beethoven’s so-called lesser works being anything but.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — November 2004 — Disc of the Month
“Fine performances of two of Beethoven’s seriously undervalued works.”
— BBC Music Magazine, August 2009
Thomas Zehetmair (violin)Philharmonia Orchestra, Heinz Holliger
Apex · 0927408122 · 59 minutes
Pairing the Berg concerto with Janáček and Hartmann is a genuinely smart bit of programming, since all three composers were writing music haunted by loss and political upheaval, just refracted through totally different temperaments. Zehetmair plays the Berg with an almost unsettling calm, letting the Bach chorale quotation emerge like something remembered rather than announced, and Holliger’s conducting gives the orchestra real weight without ever tipping into sentimentality. It’s the kind of disc that makes you hear the “To the Memory of an Angel” dedication as an actual emotional event rather than a program note.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — July 2026 — Collection
- Building a Library — January 2006 — Budget Choice
“A recording that not only stands out from the pack by virtue of its subtle attention to to detail but never ceases to be true to the authentically conflicted spirit of the music…a fresh and…”
— Gramophone Magazine, May 2010
Iwona Sobotka, Timothy Robinson, Katarina Karnéus, Thomas Zehetmair (violin), Leif Ove Andsnes (piano), Elzbieta Szmytka, Jadwiga Rappé, Philip Langridge & Thomas Hampson, Florence Quivar, Jon Garrison & John ConnellCity of Birmingham Symphony Chorus & Orchestra, with City of Birmingham…
Warner Classics · 5145762 · 4 hours 39 minutes
Szymanowski’s world is one of those places in music where the air feels thicker — all shimmering, sun-drenched harmony one moment and aching, exposed grief the next, and this box lets you wander through both sides of that world without ever feeling like you’re getting a watered-down tour. Rattle clearly has a feel for the ecstatic haze of the Symphony No. 3 and the raw stillness of the Stabat Mater, and having Zehetmair and Andsnes on hand for the concertos means the solo playing matches the conducting’s intensity rather than just riding along with it. Nearly five hours in, and there’s barely a dull stretch — which says a lot about both the composer and the performers trusted to bring him to life here.
Awards:
- Gramophone Awards — 1997 — Winner – Concerto
- Gramophone Awards — 1995 — Winner – Choral
- Gramophone Awards — 1995 — Winner – Engineering
“Both these differing works [Song of the Night and Stabat Mater] are sensitively performed, giving the listener an excellent insight into the contrasting aspects of this composer’s work. Rattle’s…”
— MusicWeb International, October 2008
Zehetmair Quartett
ECM · 4878228 · 64 minutes
Brahms wrote these two quartets after years of feeling he wasn’t worthy of Beethoven’s shadow in the genre, and you can hear that anxiety in the density of the argument — every voice pulling its weight, nothing decorative. The Zehetmair Quartett plays without a conductor’s-eye smoothness, leaning into the friction of Op. 51 No. 1’s opening rather than sanding it down, which makes the lyrical moments feel earned rather than assumed. Gramophone called these readings revelatory, and honestly that’s the right word — there’s a rawness here that cuts through decades of polished, well-mannered accounts of this music.
Awards:
- Gramophone Magazine — December 2025 — Editor’s Choice
“It’s rare to come across truly revelatory performances of such oft-recorded repertory, but that’s what the Zehetmair Quartet have given us here.”
— Gramophone Magazine, December 2025
