Ruth Killius/Thomas Zehetmair
Bartók/Casken/Beethoven

Thomas Zehetmair violin, conductor
Ruth Killius viola
Royal Northern Sinfonia
Recorded live June 2014
at The Sage Gateshead
Engineer: Hannelore Guittet
Cover photo: Max Franosch
Executive producer: Manfred Eicher
Release date: February 17, 2023

The triptych on offer here is proof positive of violinist Thomas Zehetmair’s boldness as a conductor. With his wife, violist Ruth Killius, he brings together an intriguing assortment at the helm of the Royal Northern Sinfonia. Most surprising is British composer John Casken’s That Subtle Knot, which receives its premiere recording. This double concerto for violin, viola, and orchestra was written in 2012-13 and is dedicated to the present performers. Taking its inspiration from the poetry of John Donne, whose characteristic attention to physiological detail is beautifully mirrored throughout, it charts a course of passionate complexity through two movements. The lone viola of “Calm” unfolds in an unnamed wilderness, searching its past but finding traces of the future. As the violin steps foot onto the same landscape a divider’s distance away, the orchestra hints at natural obstacles between them: a mountain face, a ravine, a river too wide to cross. And yet, none of this bars one from knowing and empathizing with the other. Moments of dance-like energy are necessarily brief so that even when they reach a state of agreement, it is always mediated through the environment. Despite its title, “Floating” is rife with dramatic highs and lows. If anything, it floats in the sense of something being tossed about in the wind and never being allowed to land until it has been battered and bruised. Like a human relationship, it weathers the storm, finding its bearings the emotional lessons it has learned. The high note on which it ends is a testament to the power of perseverance.

What a fascinating companion this work has in the form of Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. Although largely considered his final work, despite some controversy to the contrary, it is a shot in the dark of the year in which it was written (1945). Regardless of provenance and subsequent revisions, it proves itself more than ever to be a beacon of the viola repertoire at the touch of Killius’s bow. She arrives on the scene in a burst of light, courting the orchestra into a dance of knotted proportions. The more the Moderato develops, the tighter that knot becomes, unraveling itself only in dreams. There is nothing inviting or conciliatory about the viola’s restlessness. It is always unsettled, and therein lies the spell. Speaking of spells, one cannot help but be enchanted by the central movement, which speaks to the heart of this piece and its composer. Its brevity after the gargantuan first makes it all the more poignant. In the last, marked Allegro vivace, a superb articulation abounds. Every thought—both on paper and in the minds of those interpreting it—is lucid to the core, working into a concise and spirited finish.

And where to end this three-legged race? Why, in the well-worn yet crucial binding of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fifth, of course. The urgency of its familiar opening statement is given special urgency while still giving those pastoral asides room to breathe. What is remarkable is that, despite this energy, which carries over even into the flowing violins of the slower second movement, the winds are never drowned. Rather, they speak like a Greek chorus, carrying omniscience in their hands. Also notable is the sheer delicacy of the pizzicato in the third movement, so crisply captured in this recording, and the breadth of the concluding Allegro, in which a not-so-subtle knot of grace and affirmation ties itself before our very ears.