Performer: Khatia Buniatishvili
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Sony
Catalogue: 88883734622
Release: 2014
Size: 159 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Bach: Sheep May Safely Graze, from Cantata BWV208
02. Tchaikovsky: The Seasons, Op. 37b: October (‘Autumn Song’)
03. Mendelssohn: Song without Words, Op. 67 No. 2 in F sharp minor
04. Debussy: Clair de Lune (from Suite Bergamasque)
05. Kancheli: When Almonds Blossomed
06. Ligeti: Musica ricercata No. 7
07. Brahms: Intermezzo in B flat minor, Op. 117 No. 2
08. Liszt: Wiegenlied (Chant du berceau), S198
09. Dvořák: Slavonic Dance No. 10 in E minor, Op. 72 No. 2
10. Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte
11. Chopin: Étude Op. 25 No. 7 in C sharp minor
12. Scriabin: Étude Op. 2 No. 1 in C sharp minor
13. Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonata K380 in E major
14. Grieg: Lyric Pieces Op. 57: No. 6 – Homesickness
15. trad.: Vagiorko mai (Don’t you love me?)
16. Handel: Minuet in G Minor, HWV 434 / 4
17. Pärt: Für Alina
Following the success of her Chopin album on Sony Classical, Khatia Buniatishvili now reveals a new, highly personal side on her album ‘Motherland’.
The CD is an intimate quest encompassing solo piano works from Bach to Pärt and from Brahms to Kancheli, in which the themes of longing for home, the merriment of a folk dance and the eternal cycle of growth and decay are apparent.
Spanning a broad stylistic and historical range, the album celebrates the works that have accompanied Khatia Buniatishvili’s personal path in life, including pieces from her Georgian homeland.
Motherland juxtaposes the happy lightness of a ‘Slavonic Dance’ by Dvorak and the melancholy of Grieg’s lyrical ‘Homesickness’, and contrasts the elegant gaiety of Mendelssohn’s ‘Song without Words’ (op. 67/2) with the graceful introspection of Liszt’s ‘Lullaby’. Classics of the Romantic piano repertoire such as Chopin’s Étude in C-sharp minor (op. 25/7) and Brahms ‘Intermezzo’ (op. 117/2) are embedded between Bach’s cantata ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’ and Arvo Pärt’s musical dedication ‘For Alina’.
Khatia Buniatishvili has been described by The Independent as “the young Georgian firebrand”. At the age of only 26 years, this Tblisi-born pianist has already achieved an exceptional maturity of interpretation and a distinctive artistic approach that make her playing unmistakable.
Khatia’s warm, sometimes sorrowful playing may reflect a close proximity to Georgian folk-music, which, she attests, has greatly influenced her musicality. Critics emphasize that her playing has an aura of elegant solitude and even melancholy, which she does not feel to be a negative attribute. “The piano is the blackest instrument,” she says, a “symbol of musical solitude… I have to be psychologically strong and forget the hall if I want to share it with the audience.” Khatia Buniatishvili speaks five languages and lives in Paris.
As she has demonstrated in her critically acclaimed albums of the keyboard music of Liszt and Chopin, Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili is a stunning virtuoso with impressive skills and her dynamic playing compels listening. However, for her 2014 Sony album, Motherland, she finds subtle expressions in her favorite character pieces, and none of them could be considered showstoppers. Most of the selections reflect calm and intimate moods, typified by Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze, Tchaikovsky’s Autumn Song, Debussy’s Clair de lune, and Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte, while the liveliest pieces, which include Mendelssohn’s Song Without Words in F sharp minor, György Ligeti’s Musica Ricercata No. 7, Dvorák’s Slavonic Dance in E minor, and Scarlatti’s Sonata in E major, offer rather modest displays of technique. Instead of dazzling her listeners, Buniatishvili is putting forward her personal, private side in this understated program, and the key to her selections is the sense of yearning that these pieces evoke. The most passionate outpouring of emotion comes in her own arrangement of Vaguiorko ma, a Georgian folk song that surely must hold a special place in her emotional world. Because this is a gentle and poignant album, listeners may find it is best appreciated in a quiet space with few distractions.