Christian Tetzlaff, Tanja Tetzlaff and Kiveli Dörken closed the opening week of Wigmore Hall's new season with Beethoven, Dvořák and Smetana on Tuesday 15 September 2026.
The violinist Christian Tetzlaff, his sister Tanja Tetzlaff and the pianist Kiveli Dörken closed the opening week of Wigmore Hall’s new season in Marylebone on Tuesday 15 September 2026.
Christian Tetzlaff was born in Hamburg in 1966 to amateur musicians and took up the violin and the piano at six. His breakthrough came in 1988, when he played Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra.
Four decades into a solo career, he still leads the Tetzlaff Quartett with Tanja. He has twice been named instrumentalist of the year, most recently in 2026.
The programme opened on Beethoven’s Piano Trio in C minor. Dvořák’s Trio No. 2 in G minor, Op. 26, then sat beside Smetana’s Trio in G minor, Op. 15, two works shaped by the loss of a child. Mendelssohn’s Trio No. 2 in C minor was the encore.
Tanja Tetzlaff, a cellist, has played with her brother. Their Schumann trios with Leif Ove Andsnes took the chamber recording of the year in 2012. Kiveli Dörken is a young German-Greek pianist who runs the Molyvos festival on Lesbos.