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Music Lane It's all about the music, dude! Sit down, relax and listen to some tunes. |
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Music Lane It's all about the music, dude! Sit down, relax and listen to some tunes. |
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Khatia Buniatishvili has appeared three times in SF so far - twice with the SF Symphony, and, last weekend, in a solo recital. I've seen all three of these events. The first thing I noticed about this recital was that the program was insanely difficult:
- Liszt: Sonata in B minor
- Ravel: La Valse (composer's transcription for solo piano)
- Chopin: Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor
- Stravinsky: Three Scenes from Petrouchka
Sure, I've seen programs where someone will do the Liszt Sonata and both sets of Chopin Etudes, but this program, especially with the Ravel and Stravinsky, is every bit as difficult, if not more so.
I was wildly enthusiastic about Khatia's debut CD, an all Liszt album which included a hell-for-leather rendition of the Sonata. There used to be an in-concert video of Khatia in this work, recorded around that time, which revealed a few out-of-control moments which were "fixed" in the (studio) recording on CD. The whole thing (both the video and the CD) was tremendously exciting, although I remember a couple of posters here being less impressed than I was. So. . . how interesting (I thought) to hear Khatia's updated thoughts on this work after a further couple of years of living with it. And make no mistake: some sections (such as the salvo of octaves following the quiet opening) were played as excitingly and as accurately as I ever hope to hear them in concert. And, believe me, those octaves can be treacherous doom for the unprepared pianist. Over the years, I've read accounts of splatty disasters in concert performances by such pianists as Curzon and Brendel - pianists who have respected studio recordings of this great work. Not so with Khatia!
HOWEVER. . . there were other spots where she just kept accelerating and accelerating, until she couldn't articulate the notes anymore - particularly that repeated-note motive, where she just couldn't keep the sixteenths clear. The slower middle section was just heavenly, and you could feel that she had the audience in the palm of her hand. And, geez, the beginning of the fugue was as excitingly played as I ever hope to hear it. But then she couldn't resist the temptation to accelerate still further - beyond the limits of being able to articulate clearly, and, once again, she was off the rails. At the very end, she returned to the spirituality and control she had displayed in the slow "movement". Once again, the audience was totally under her spell (and I mean NO coughing or noise at all!), so much so that it was a good 40-50 seconds after she finished that the applause broke out. Clearly, this woman is providing something to an audience that they're not getting with the vast majority of other pianists these days.
There's another video I previously posted of Khatia doing La Valse - it was very close to what I heard on Saturday in SF: huge sections just wildly, spectacularly out of control! Deranged, breakneck tempos, with gobs of notes just MIA. In a way, you have to admire the bravery of even attempting such an interpretive approach, but when so much is lost, then you start to think that it's perhaps less bravery and more foolhardiness. It pains me to say this, because she has the potential to breathe such vitality into our sometimes moribund concert scene. Personally, I'm not sure I'd want to hear a performance of this work like this again, but the audience reaction was ecstatic, with ejaculations of "Yeah! Yeah!" perhaps more appropriate for a riot!
I've discussed Khatia's recording of the Chopin "Funeral March" Sonata previously, when her recording of it came out. There are lots of things I like about it, such as the refusal to hesitate when changing hand positions in the initial scherzo theme, or the interesting take on articulation in the last movement, as each repetition of the theme exhibited a different level of legato and pedaling (or intentional lack thereof). It was not an entirely ship-shape performance, but I liked it very much nevertheless.
With the Stravinsky, we were back to bonkers time again, with the tempos foaming at the mouth and Khatia missing notes by the bushel. What can I say? She's SO interesting, and yet she misses SO badly sometimes. And what's really strange is that she was in such better control when she played with the SF Symphony (Ravel G-major and Rachmaninoff 2) - no problems at all really, just imaginative, life affirming playing which you wanted to return to and get insight from again and again. Even so, at the end of the Stravinsky, the "riot" applause and shouting broke out again.
The first encore was Handel's Minuet in G minor in Wilhelm Kempff's transcription. Now we were back with the "good" Khatia - what a transcendent spell she wove, such was her control of voicing and texture.
The second and final encore was the finale from Prokofiev's Sonata No. 7, another demented exercise in out-of-control locomotion! (I previously posted a video of a similar performance she gave of this work too.)
To give an idea of how crazy her tempos can be, I'm embedding a YouTube video of a performance of the Bach Concerto for Two Pianos in C minor (better known in its Concerto for Two Violins in D minor guise) by Khatia and her sister, Gvantsa. Although the outer movements of this performance are quite fast, at least they're under control:
One last thing about Khatia's solo concert: the program notes contained not a word about the music itself. The two full pages were entirely devoted to Khatia. When I showed the program to my wife (who did not attend), her comment was just, "What a narcissist!"
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Topic - Insanely great? Or just insane? Khatia's solo recital debut in SF - Chris from Lafayette 20:59:40 04/16/14 (2)
- Another nice BWV1062 - andy evans 06:41:29 04/17/14 (1)
- Yeah, but I miss the bobbing and weaving of the Buniatishvili sisters! - Chris from Lafayette 08:50:10 04/17/14 (0)
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