Lisa Batiashvili CITY LIGHTS

CITY LIGHTS

Lisa Batiashvili / Yannick Nézet-Séguin / Chamber Orchestra of Europe VISIONS OF PROKOFIEV

Visions of Prokofiev features Prokofiev’s two violin concertos – completed in 1917 and 1935 respectively and long-since established as classics of the 20th-century repertoire – alongside three much-loved excerpts from the composer’s stage works in arrangements by Lisa’s father, Tamás Batiashvili. The Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Yannick Nézet-Séguin accompanies Lisa’s violin on the album.

In Soviet-era Georgia, Prokofiev was considered one of the foremost composers of the 20th century. As well as being widely performed throughout the country, his music was on the curriculum and therefore formed part of Lisa Batiashvili’s earliest musical memories. When she moved to Germany in 1991, it was Prokofiev’s music that shaped her as an artist. In her earliest days at the Hamburg Musikhochschule, Mark Lubotsky set her to work on the “First Violin Concerto”. Although Batiashvili, then twelve years old, did not immediately grasp the powerful gestures and suggestive theatricality of Prokofiev’s early work, she did familiarize herself with the concerto. As her career developed, she began programming it on significant occasions. Now a piece whose style she can fully identify with, it has more or less become her calling card.

“Although 15 or 20 years ago the ‘First Concerto’ wasn’t as popular as it is today, I played it in major competitions and made a number of debuts with it,” says Batiashvili. “It has a tenderness and dreamy detachment about it that I find hugely fascinating. Prokofiev clearly has endless ways of conveying the fragility and vulnerability of human experience. And yet everything is so close to being expressed in a genuinely Classical manner. The concerto’s closeness to ballet and the theatre is, of course, a result of Prokofiev’s gift for defining individual roles and characters with the most succinct and beautiful musical themes.”

There are palpable, if informal, connections between the two concertos and the three perennial favourites from Prokofiev’s ballets Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella and his early opera, The Love for Three Oranges, here heard in arrangements created by the violinist’s father, Tamás Batiashvili. “The first time you hear it, the ‘Second Concerto’ might seem rather more conventional and calculated than the ‘First’. But the wonderful second-movement cantilena, for example, is a close relation of the ‘Love Theme’ from Romeo and Juliet. What Prokofiev does in the ballets is directly reflected in the character of the concertos. Conversely, the best numbers from the ballets are so rounded that they work even when they’re removed from their theatrical context.”

Above all, as Batiashvili explains, Prokofiev is a composer “who truly combines East and West, and whose music therefore has a sense of timelessness.” The formal language of the German instrumental tradition, a feeling for colour nurtured by French Impressionism, and, finally, that combination of intense melodiousness and thrilling rhythmic energy typical of Russian composers since the mid-19th century all come together in Prokofiev. In 1917, the year of the October Revolution, he left Russia to seek his fortune in the U.S. and Western Europe. By 1936 he had become an international celebrity but the economic situation in the West had worsened dramatically. Overwhelmed by homesickness, he returned to the Soviet Union. There he became a prominent servant of an authoritarian system, acclaimed and reprimanded by turns. As fate would have it, he died on the same day as Stalin in March 1953.

Lisa Batiashvili, herself an emigrant, is another musician who naturally combines Eastern and Western influences. Although she still has strong ties to her native Georgia, and regularly returns to Tblisi to visit friends and relatives and give concerts for her compatriots, she regards herself as a European. Batiashvili lives in Munich with her French husband and her children who were all born in Germany. She is no longer forced to choose one country or way of life over another – her cultural influences can coexist and complement each other.

The same is true of her artistic life. Like many instrumentalists trained in the Russian tradition, Batiashvili is fundamentally a Classicist. Clear proportions, elegant lines, the beauty of restraint and as seamless and natural a development as possible are more important to her than virtuosic excess or striving after effect for its own sake. These are qualities shared by the players of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, making them the perfect partners for Batiashvili on this recording. The members of the COE, among the finest musicians in the world today, represent many different nationalities – a positive example of European pluralism. They come together every year for a limited period to work on chosen projects with leading conductors, such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Lisa Batiashvili has also played many an important concert under Nézet-Séguin’s baton and is delighted to have had the opportunity of working with him again here. “His way of making music is so natural, and at the same time so moving,” she explains, “that you feel as though you’re dealing with a force of nature. As far as I’m concerned, this orchestra, Yannick and I together make an ideal artistic team.”

Lisa Batiashvili BACH

While violinist Lisa Batiashvili has recorded mostly Romantic and modernist music, she has chosen to perform works by J.S. Bach for her third album on Deutsche Grammophon, signaling an expansion of a repertoire that is already quite varied. Even the selections on this 2014 release show a preference for a mix of pieces, with only the Violin Concerto in E major, the solo Violin Sonata in A minor, and the Sinfonia from the cantata Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe to showcase her talents as soloist. The rest of her program features her husband, oboist François Leleux, in the Double Concerto for violin and oboe in C minor, and the aria from the St. Matthew Passion, Erbarme dich, mein Gott, which he plays on oboe d'amore; and the Trio for flute, violin, and continuo in B minor by C.P.E. Bach, with flutist Emmanuel Pahud. Batiashvili generously shares the spotlight with these musicians, and their inclusion gives the whole CD an enjoyable feeling of conversation and flexibility of approach, which a straight run of violin concertos would have lacked. One drawback is the sound of the recording, which is echoic and a little indistinct, due to the resonant acoustics of the venues. Otherwise, this is a vibrant and appealing mainstream presentation of Bach that shows Batiashvili and her colleagues in a positive light. (Blair Sanderson)

For her first Bach recording, Lisa Batiashvili has chosen [a program] to demonstrate her refined musicianship and technical skills in a range of contexts, as well as her good taste. In the concertos' quick movements she offers a sweet, light tone and clearly but gently detailed articulation, using vibrato only when there seems good reason to . . . slow movements are more openly expressive, with Batiashvili at one moment playing out with controlled gorgeousness, the next retreating into rapt and intimate pianissimo. The sonata really shows her at her best, with effortless mastery lending an unusual sense of easeful calm to the music while still contributing towards a fiery Fuga and a delicate and loving Andante. This is fine playing indeed . . . a disc full of classy music-making. (Lindsay Kemp / Gramophone Awards Issue)

Lisa Batiashvili / Daniel Barenboim / Staatskapelle Berlin TCHAIKOVSKY - SIBELIUS Violin Concertos

On their latest album release, General Music Director Daniel Barenboim leads the Staatskapelle Berlin with violinist Lisa Batiashvili in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and Sibelius’s Violin Concerto. 

Barenboim first heard Batiashvili perform with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, which inspired their future collaborations. “There are few violinists with better taste,” says Barenboim. 

The album, released on 4 November, 2016 on Deutsche Grammophon, marks Barenboim and Batiashvili’s first recording project together.

Batiashvili / Brendel / Fellner / Freston / Williams HARRISON BIRTWISTLE Chamber Music

This album of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s chamber music and songs, mostly of recent vintage, is issued as the innovative Great British composer approaches his 80^th birthday. It features an exceptional cast. Heard together and separately is the trio of Austrian pianist Till Fellner, Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili and English cellist Adrian Brendel. They are joined by London-born singers Amy Freston and Roderick Williams. The compositions include “Bogenstrich” written in 2006 as a short piece in tribute to Alfred Brendel and first played by his son Adrian together with Fellner. It was subsequently expanded into a cycle with the addition of settings of Rilke for baritone, cello and piano. The “Trio” is the newest piece, premiered in 2011, a 16-minute single movement work of elaborate patterning, gestures and responses, for piano, violin and cello. Settings of the writings of US Objectivist poet Lorine Niedecker (1903-1970), scored for soprano and cello in 1998 and 2000, begin and close the album. As Bayan Northcott writes in the booklet, “These concentrated songs demand the utmost of their performers in precision, expression and timing. As in Webern’s settings, the few words and notes on the page can seem to imply whole worlds of thought and feeling”. This highly-concentrated chamber-scale expressivity is felt throughout the entire album, recorded at Munich’s famed Herkulessaal, and produced by Manfred Eicher.

Batiashvili / Bezaly / Pesola / Leleux NICOLAS BACRI Sturm und Drang

Concerto nostalgico “L’automne” and Concerto amoroso “Le printemps” are the first two panels of Bacri’s work-in-progress Les quatre saisons Op.80, a series of four concertos for oboe and other instruments. The third panel Concerto tenebroso “L’hiver” for oboe, violin and strings was first performed in January 2010. The first performance of the fourth panel Concerto luminoso “L’été” for oboe, violin, cello and strings is to take place in spring 2011.
Concerto amoroso “Le printemps” for oboe, violin and strings is in a single movement in which a long central Notturno is framed by two lively, rhythmically alert outer sections (Mosaïca and Mosaïca II). The outer sections display Neo-classical characteristics whereas the central Nocturne is at times quite intense. The scoring for oboe and cello imbues Concerto nostalgico “L’automne” for oboe, cello and strings with an appropriately autumnal colour. This, too, is in one single movement falling into four sections played without a break. The music unfolds seamlessly from the dark mood of the opening through various contrasting sections (Scherzo alla Fuga and Romanza) before reaching the beautiful, appeased epilogue.
Nicolas Bacri has composed quite a number of concertos or concertante works -some thirty of them up to now (2010). The Concerto for Flute and Orchestra is scored for fairly small orchestral forces (double woodwind, two horns, percussion and strings) and is in three movements. The first movement opens with a slow introduction leading into the main part of the movement Allegro moderato that nevertheless allows for a variety of moods. The second movement Estatico is a Nocturne of sorts - one with some very dark corners. The final movement opens with some energy, but moods vary again until the music reaches its conclusion in a night music à la Bartók in which it eventually thins away calmly.
The short Nocturne Op.90 for cello and strings is in a fairly straightforward arch-form with slow outer sections framing a more animated and tense central one. This compact work is - to my mind - a good example of Bacri’s music-making in that the music says all it has to say with not a single note wasted.
Nicolas Bacri has composed six symphonies so far and his Seventh Symphony will be premiered in autumn 2011. The Symphony No.4 “Sturm und Drang” Op.49 was written for the Orchestre de Picardie of which Bacri was composer-in-residence. The orchestra and its conductor Louis Langrée had dedicated a concert-cycle to “Sturm und Drang” compositions of the late-Classical era and wanted a new work in the same aesthetic. Bacri, however, wanted to write his own music while paying homage to some older beloved composers. The four movements of the Fourth Symphony are thus meant as homage to composers of the early 20th century (Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Weill respectively) although the music never directly quotes from or alludes to their music. The work as a whole is also a tribute to a number of other 20th century composers such as Ravel, Prokofiev and Walton. The Fourth Symphony is Bacri’s Classical Symphony paying homage to the musical past without a single hint of pastiche or parody.
One of the more endearing characteristics of Nicolas Bacri’s music is that he never outstretches or overworks his material thus achieving some remarkable concision. This is never at the expense of expression and communication. As early as 1983, when his music was still fairly adventurous, Bacri inscribed a phrase from Tristan Tzara on one of his scores: “I know that I carry melody within me and I am not afraid of it”. The works recorded here - as so much else in Bacri’s output - clearly “carry melody and are not afraid of it”.
All these performances are excellent and superbly recorded, and the whole - Martin Anderson’s detailed and well-informed insert notes included - is up to BIS’ best standards. This is a very fine release by any count. (Hubert Culot, MusicWeb International)

Yannick Nézet-Séguin / Lisa Batiashvili / Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra TCHAIKOVSKY Pathétique

Yannick Nézet-Séguin's first symphonic recording with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra on Deutsche Grammophon is of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B minor, "Pathétique," which the conductor has known intimately throughout c, this is a solid reading that holds its own against the large number of recordings of this symphony, so listeners who need a first-rate version can be assured of the interpretation and the performance. Yet because this is one of the most frequently recorded classical pieces of all time, one may wonder what Nézet-Séguin brings to it that makes his rendition necessary. Perhaps his sense of pacing and calculated use of rubato for dramatic effect make it feel more organic than most, and his sudden shifts of tempo and emphasis on heightened dynamics make this one of the most interesting versions to follow. But in the end, there's not enough to distinguish it from the competition, so listeners should not expect a major revelation. It's still the same warhorse. To fill out the CD, Nézet-Séguin accompanies violinist Lisa Batiashvili in a selection of Tchaikovsky's Romances, Op. 6 and Op. 73, of which the most famous is None but the lonely heart (track 8). These pieces serve as a welcome palate cleanser after the rich but not overly ripe performance of the "Pathétique," and it's interesting to hear Nézet-Séguin's piano playing, which is quite restrained and poetic in feeling. Batiashvili carries the melodic lines with passionate expression and a warm singing tone, so the most compelling music making can be found in these filler tracks.

Lisa Batiashvili JOHANNES BRAHMS / CLARA SCHUMANN

Lisa Batiashvili begins by working on the notes on the printed page. It is as pure and simple as that. “I prefer scores that contain as little additional information as possible,” she says. “Ideally, no fingering, no commentaries – I want to work on a new piece myself; it has to grow and eventually to become a part of me.”

For the Georgian violinist, notes are the most perfect language, a language in which emotions, desires and states of mind are revealed, none of which can be expressed in words. Such thoughts take us beyond our historical knowledge of the works’ composers and their lives. “Only when you accept their music as art”, she says, “does it become possible to create a link between the composers and our own day – only then can you fill your own work with thoughts and ideas and associations.”

From a historical point of view, it is, of course, very tempting to speculate about Brahms’s Violin Concerto and Clara Schumann’s Three Romances. What was the relationship between their two composers? Did they use music to express their love for each other? What is beyond doubt is that Brahms and Clara Schumann were close. At least from the time that Robert Schumann was immured in an asylum at Endenich, their contacts grew more intense, and the formal “Sie” that they had previously used when addressing each other gave way to the informal “Du” used to imply greater tenderness between them. But most of their letters were destroyed by mutual consent. “We can only speculate on the details of their relationship,” says Batiashvili, “and perhaps this explains the appeal of the whole affair, namely, that we can only surmise what happened and must use their music to enter their emotional worlds.”

For Batiashvili, who herself combines the demands of a career and a family, Clara Schumann is an altogether exceptional figure in the history of music: “Clara is hard to fathom. On the one hand, she was a modern woman who loved her art and her family – an emancipated artist. On the other hand, I do not think that she was happy. She sacrificed her life to Robert Schumann.”

It makes sense to Batiashvili that Brahms should have been infatuated with Clara, who was 14 years older than he was: “Clara was a consummate artist, a corrective to his work and a self-evident part of the life of Robert Schumann, who was Brahms’s great model and champion.” The fact that Clara was inspired by Brahms is something that the violinist attributes to Brahms’s genius: “Living with Schumann, Clara saw how he struggled to produce every note and found the compositional process a source of torment. And suddenly Brahms came along, a musician for whom composition was terrifyingly straightforward and for whom music was not a struggle but a joy. She must have been fascinated by the facility and ease that she discovered here.”

And Batiashvili naturally feels that Brahms’s Violin Concerto reflects its composer’s emotional state: “First and foremost there is this very long opening movement in which Brahms finds room for so many different ideas and thoughts. The difficulty of interpreting it lies in the fact that this kind of composition follows the German language: every note must be held to its full length and played with a singing tone, nothing can be swept under the table. At the same time it is important to create a single overarching structure and maintain an epic approach to the work, rather than moving step by step from one piece in the mosaic to the next. This movement requires great physical and intellectual effort.” The second movement reveals even more about the composer and his longings: “For me, it is an incredibly impassioned declaration of his love – and the violin seems like a woman’s voice here.”

 (Axel Brüggemann)

Lisa Batiashvili ECHOES OF TIME

The sound of Shostakovich belongs to Lisa Batiashvili’s earliest memories. During her childhood, she often heard her father’s string quartet rehearse Shostakovich’s music, and at home and in concert his was the sound world which shaped her sense of cultural context. Lisa Batiashvili and her family left their Georgian homeland when she was eleven years old, but the music of Shostakovich travelled with them. Mark Lubotsky, her teacher in Hamburg, was a student of David Oistrakh, for whom Shostakovich wrote his violin concertos, and to the young Lisa Batiashvili, this felt like a direct line to the source. “When my teacher started telling stories about the First Violin Concerto, I completely fell in love with this piece. David Oistrakh had shared very emotional and precise information about every movement. Somehow the piece became symbolic of the time in the Soviet Union, which I had also experienced myself during the first ten years of my life. Musicians during Soviet times were also looking for the freedom that Shostakovich sought through his music. Music was an escape and a symbol of freedom at a time when it was so difficult to function in an incredibly brutal system. When I travelled to Moscow with my parents, we met many people, and I had a strong feeling that this music was a mirror of what they were going through.” So her debut recording for Deutsche Grammophon has Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto at its core. Under the title Echoes of Time, Lisa Batiashvili has assembled a collection of works which all cast light on Soviet Russia.

Her native Georgia is represented through Giya Kancheli’s haunting V & V, a small taste of a sound world which is markedly different from, yet somehow connected to, that of its massive northern neighbour. “Georgian people are actually not at all related to Russians”, explains Lisa Batiashvili. “In terms of climate, Georgia is a southern country, and the people are more like southern Italians or Greeks by nature – very alive, incredibly emotional and spontaneous. You have the mountains and the sea and great weather for eight months of the year. Russia is vast and lonely and full of isolated places, whereas Georgia is compact and everything is kind of burning. Of course, I cannot avoid sounding Georgian when I play. I spent my childhood there, and when you are in Georgia, you feel something very intense. It’s in my genes and in my veins, even if I’ve spent more than 20 years now in Europe.”

In 1994, Lisa Batiashvili and her family moved to Munich, where she stayed for 15 years. Since then she and her oboist husband have moved to France with their children, but the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra still feels like family. “It’s very special to record with them, because during my time in Munich I got to know three quarters of the orchestra personally”, she says. “I have friends in the orchestra and also colleagues with whom I play chamber orchestra. Recording with them was one of the most wonderful personal experiences – quite apart from the fact that this is one of the most fantastic orchestras in the world, with a tradition like few others.”

Through her spectacular win in the Sibelius Competition at the age of 16 and subsequent visits to Finland, Lisa Batiashvili also feels a cultural affinity with conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. “When we began the first rehearsal of the Shostakovich, it already felt as if we had played together millions of times. With Esa-Pekka, everything seems so easy and natural. Everything falls immediately into place. He has amazing intuition.” And this recording also brought the long-awaited chance to work with pianist Hélène Grimaud, for Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel and Rachmaninov’s Vocalise. “We’ve been planning for years to play together. She loves this kind of repertoire. I admire her a lot, not only for her musicianship, but also as a person who is an incredibly serious musician.” While Pärt and Kancheli, like Shostakovich, both felt the weight of Soviet oppression, Rachmaninov’s music expresses a nostalgic yearning for his homeland that Lisa Batiashvili feels fits well with the other works on the recording. It balances the sweetness of Shostakovich’s Lyrical Waltz, written for the piano and arranged for violin and orchestra by her father, with echoes of another age, she says.

Germany, Finland, Georgia, Moscow, France – in the course of our conversation, Lisa Batiashvili has mentioned a surprising number of places which are almost, but not quite, home. “It has happened quite often over the past fifteen years that I was not really sure where I belonged”, she agrees. “Germany felt so different from my own country when I first arrived there. But when I went back to Georgia I found I didn’t understand anymore who I was or where I belonged. And at the same time I didn’t really integrate fully with the German way of life, I felt like a guest everywhere. On the other hand, for musicians it is a huge advantage to be able to make their home wherever they go. I have a French husband now, our children were born in Germany, and I no longer feel uncomfortable about this way of life. When you bring music to the whole world, it is important to have an easy connection to all kinds of people. And then, in the end, you are not really a stranger anywhere anymore.”

(Shirley Apthorp)