Khatia Buniatishvili In Recital – 2012 Verbier Festival – Past Daily Mid-Week Concert

Khatia Buniatishvili, in recital – 2012 Verbier Festival – July 24, 2012 – RTS-Espace 2, Switzerland-

Over to the 2012 Verbier Festival in Switzerland for a recital by Khatia Buniatisvili and broadcast live by RTS-Espace 2.

The concert begins with the Bach Prelude and Fugue BWV 543 (Liszt transcription) and then over to Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata, Chopin’s Sonata Number 2 and finishing up the official portion of the concert with Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz Number 1 – and then a series of encores and an encore performance of Rachmaninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto with Charles Dutoit leading the orchestra and more encores. Needless to say, an enthusiastic batch of performances and audiences – all from July 24, 2012.

A lot of ink has been devoted to the career of Khatia Buniatisvili – depending on who you read or talk to, she’s the greatest living pianist on the planet with an astonishing gift of expression and insight. Others have, well . . .trashed her – saying she’s all flash with no substance or high on pyrotechnics who tilts the Richter scale on jiggle-factor with very little else.

I am not here to judge – my job is to present and let you go at it. Suffice to say, Khatia Buniatishvili has become something of a wunderkind since her start and has done what every artist worth their salt has done since the beginning of time; court controversy. And if you’ve never heard a Beethoven Piano Sonata and think Classical Music is the property of ancient rich White people, she has done her job. And if you are blown away, you have become a convert and Classical Music has gotten another fan for the long haul.

Face it – whether you like her or not you know about her – and in a playing field fairly overflowing with new faces and new points of view, you have to do something to stand out from the rest. Khatia Buniatishvili does that handsomely.

So now it’s up to you to sit down with this concert and give it a listen. How you feel about it is how you feel about it – and that’s what makes music a fun and rewarding experience.

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