Khatia Buniatishvili reviews

This is Khatia Buniatishvili’s fifth album for Sony, following recordings of Liszt, Chopin, Ravel, Stravinsky and pieces from the pianist’s native Georgia. While Buniatishvili’s early Liszt impressed, her recent performances have been divisive. Buniatishvili’s sensitivity, lyricism and jubilance – not to mention flawless technique – suits Rachmaninov’s concertos, and her coupling of Nos 2 and 3 is largely enjoyable.

Khatia Buniatishvili offers a very individual and often imaginative account of Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Whereas most pianists stride through the opening ‘Promenade’ with a real sense of purpose, Buniatishvili is much more pensive, presenting the musical argument in veiled colours. This dream-world is startlingly interrupted by an unusually sinister account of ‘Gnomus’ in which she marshals a formidably wide range of textures and colours to perfectly convey the malevolence in Musorgsky’s writing.

The content of Khatia Buniatishvili’s concept album on the idea of homesickness fortunately outweighs its laid-on-with-trowel packaging. Behind the flowers, butterflies and soulful photos there lies some very classy piano playing.

‘I was always aware that my first recording had to be a portrait of Liszt,’ says Khatia Buniatishvili in her stupefying booklet note. ‘Only he would enable me to present as a unity the many aspects of my soul.’ Well, pardon my ignorance: I always thought a performer’s prime duty was to convey the essence of the composer, not of themselves. The booklet is better read after a stiff drink, and yet there’s some dumbfounding playing in the B minor Sonata and Mephisto Waltz No.

In their very different ways both these releases (see Nonesuch PRO400123) typify Gidon Kremer’s extraordinarily eclectic outlook, which delights in juxtaposing works that appear at first glance to have little connection with each other.

Martha Argerich’s festival with friends and former pupils in Lugano has become an annual event since its foundation in 2002. The 2009 Festival, as enshrined in the live performances on these three discs, seems to have given more space to unfamiliar repertoire than in previous years, such as the rarely-encountered Mendelssohn Piano Sextet, which despite its misleadingly high opus number is yet another work of genius from his mid-teens.