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Lisa Batiashvili was named Musical America’s 2015 Instrumentalist of the Year and is currently Artist-In-Residence at Rome’s Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Although her repertoire is extensive, she seems to have a special affinity for the music of Prokofiev, as evidenced by this all Prokofiev release that features violin concertos Op. 19 and Op. 63 and three arrangements for solo violin and orchestra by Tamas Batiashvili, her father.
Batiashvili’s artistry is front and center in this disc, as is a dynamic and nuanced collaboration from the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Yannick Nezet-Seguin, who will become Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera in September of this year. Batiashvili is an honest musician in the sense that she is totally absorbed in trying to best represent Prokofiev’s intentions – as we understand them to be from the score and his stylistic personality.
Batiashvili makes every phrase and technical twist come alive with intense emotional conviction, flexibility and pristine clarity. But she draws out a special magic in the Andante assai of the second concerto, where she stretches the line with a purity of sound that soars above the orchestral pizzicato and full-bodied resonance of brass and winds. She brings an earthy and elusive quality to the Allegro moderato, pushing the melodic irregularities to the edge of tonality – although I’m cool with this kinda writing!
In the opening of Op.19 concerto, Batiashvili’s velvety sound is cushioned in supple lyricism that dissolves into highly charged fingerwork of sequences that contain wonderful free fall harmonies. The Scherzo Vivacissimo erupts in a more lighthearted atmosphere that evokes this composer’s Romeo and Juliet and combines patterns of primal-type rhythmic push ups, which she delivers with brilliance and just the right amount of punch – in an approach that favors delicacy over harshness, even in the most raucous musical moments.
Three arrangements offer another aspect of Prokofiev’s creativity: Dance of the Knights from the ballet score to Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64 (the revised version was premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1940); Grand Waltz from Cinderella, Op. 87 (the ballet score received its debut at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1945) and Grand March from the opera The love for Three Oranges, Op. 33 – all performed with dramatic inflection.
Lisa Batiashvili’s other recordings also have that five star quality.