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Home   >   Stories   >   Khatia Buniatishvili w/ASMF grace Barbican Hall with a captivating performance of Mozart / A Young(ish) Perspective

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Khatia Buniatishvili w/ASMF grace Barbican Hall with a captivating performance of Mozart / A Young(ish) Perspective

Posted: December 11, 2024

As Pablo Casals once did before, Khatia Buniatishvili places the human being at the centre of her art. The fundamental values handed down from the Enlightenment are not up for discussion. Were there a fire and a choice to be made between child and painting, she would not hesitate for a second. Yet, once she had pulled the child from the blaze, she would take it to the Museum of Fine Arts so that it might become a painter. No need to save “the fire” (as Cocteau replied) because it already burns her eyes, rages in her fingers and warms her heart.

Khatia’s great career has come quite naturally, without a struggle. The sun has no need to move mountains to exist for it rises and shines for all.  And these are the words that spring to mind when one sees her bursting onto the stage or in life: her hair flowing, her fine figure quite the Parisian, her lips smiling, her light sylph-like steps and her feline body.  But the rose will show its thorns if it feels what it holds dear to be threatened. She won’t be made to give up a humanitarian project. She won’t be prevented from helping the country in which she was born and raised. She won’t be forced to play in a land that pours scorn on her values. She won’t have playing partners forced upon her who do not inspire human respect and great artistic admiration in equal measure. For that matter, nothing can be imposed on this young lady of the air whose wing-beats pollinate works and who sprinkles a musical cloud of golden powder to the four winds.

Franz Liszt is one of her heroes. He was the one with whom she wanted to venture first into the world of discography. Liszt is constantly pushing back the boundaries of what is possible. He innovates and is generous, bringing together popular and academic styles, the profane and sacred, nature and poetry – he transcends whatever he touches. Khatia Buniatishvili avoids representation and self-intellectualisation. She could very well make her own the motto of her friend Martha Agerich, “Live and let live” – she too is a Gemini. She likes the complexity of things, not complication; paradoxes, not rigid oppositions that often prove to be sterile. She is at ease creating and less interested in reaction.   Stimulated by the dialogue between the arts, she breathes the oxygen of imagination and finds balance in musing.

When it comes down to it, she remains this child fascinated with life and with beings who was already reading Dostoevsky and Chekhov at the age of nine, and for whom it was already quite clear that beauty would save the world. With no distinctions made: whatever is just will sound just and will make its own mark. It is in just such a way that she approaches all styles from Baroque to modern in her CD “Motherland”, to demonstrate that true music has no need of barriers and that all styles fade into the one true all-linking, all-revealing style that can be summed up in Mozart’s words: “Love, love, love, therein lies the soul of genius.” Khatia Buniatishvili, shining pianist at the height of her abilities, came into this world in a shower of light during the summer solstice. On a human level, she is attracted more to equinoxes, being smitten by justice and seeking day and night in equal share.  By lifting one’s eyes skywards one might notice her playing hide-and-seek with either Venus or Mercury. The cosmos is her garden and it is in its movement that she feels alive, astride a comet.

A Young(ish) Perspective's chelseajina writes….Pianist Khatia Buniatishvili is no stranger to the Barbican. A frequent face on their stage, she returns as an Artist Spotlight performing two Mozart pieces that make an appearance on her recent album, accompanied by the always impressive Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Buniatishvili frequently graces the Barbican stage, and performing in London is said to hold a deep significance for her. She says, “I love performing at The Barbican. I find the public is so relaxed… there’s always a new wave of people coming. England always feels like a surprise to me, and I love that. It’s refreshing, and I feel that energy when I play there.”

This energy, the playful comfort, was profoundly noticeable in Buniatishvili’s performance. She walks onto the stage in glittering dress, drawing the audience closely in. She seems to shimmer, not purely by means of her literally shining dress, but by her confident and joyful spirit. She commands the stage and the orchestra, playing front and centre, leading the musicians in a profoundly enjoyable piece of music. Starting with Don Giovanni Overture (7’), the sombre yet quirky tone offers a grand and intriguing entry point to the work. Buniatishvili couples this with Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major K488 (26’), a multifaceted experience that moves from elation to unabating pain with shocking seamlessness, reflecting the similar experience we are all bound to have as people, highlighting the core human values that transcend time. This is followed by Mendelssohn: Hebrides Overture (10’) and Haydn: Symphony 104 (29’), in which the Academy of St Martin in the Fields truly shines.

Like many people in their twenties, I do not frequent classical performances. They seem inaccessible, an artform that circumvents my breadth of understanding. If I were to envision an evening watching two of Mozart’s concertos, not to mention Mendelssohn and Haydn, I would picture an older, wealthier, pretentious crowd and a performance that I might enjoy but would probably not understand. What was so exciting about this performance was that I was proven wrong. Khatia Buniatishvili’s talent and adoration for what she does speaks volumes. She truly embodied the music, almost dancing while she played, literally putting-her-hands-in-the-air-like-she-just didn’t-care during the short bursts in which her hands weren’t occupied by the piano. The organic nature with which she truly felt what she played was reflected by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, who bounded behind her with abundant passion. This evening highlighted the need to democratise classical music culturally, allowing for a younger audience to have the chance to enjoy this transcendent artform, particularly if someone as talented and excited as Khatia Buniatishvili is gracing the stage.

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