May 1, 2014

I must be missing something...


For a woman who plays not a note of contemporary music in her public recitals, what does this publicity photo supposedly promise to those who pay to hear Khatia Buniatishvili play the numbingly familiar works of Liszt, Chopin, and Schumann?  A sensuous massage backstage during the intermission?  A slow striptease to accompany the dying away of final notes in Schumann's Fantasy Op.17?   Or is it simply a desperate attempt to divert everyone's attention from the fact that Khatia has never been able to give a clean execution of a single technically demanding piece in her repertoire (at least not in the dozens of live recordings I've heard before giving up on this pianist)?


3 comments:

alfred venison said...

looks like a style answerable to the label "muscular eroto-realism" to me. i'd be expecting something like khatchaturian or miakovsky in the program. -cheers, alfred venison.

Andrew said...

I had missed seeing/hearing this pianist until the other day, when I watched her play the Grieg concerto on TV. Smiling at the oboist while he plays the second subject is permissible; waving the head about with eyes closed is annoying. At the point she started weaving her hands about elegantly while not using them on the keyboard I was filled with an urgent need to watch an inane chat show - anything else, in fact.

John King said...

Er, her Concerto In 34D Major?