Khatia Buniatishvili Releases Her First Ever Mozart Album
Available October 25, 2024
Includes Piano Concerto Nos. 20 And 23
With The Academy Of St. Martin In The Fields
Album Artwork Photo Credit: Sony Music/Esther Haase
“One of today's most exciting and technically gifted young pianists”
THE GUARDIAN
“... so effortless that the piano appeared to play itself.”
LOS ANGELES TIMES
October 4 , 2024 - For her tenth album on Sony Classical, Khatia Buniatishvili joins an iconic orchestra in performances of two cherished piano concertos by Mozart, her first-ever album dedicated to the composer. Available for preorder now, the new recording will be released on October 25, 2024.
After a string of releases on Sony Classical that have redefined the parameters of the classical recital album, Khatia Buniatishvili is returning to tradition with a recording of two of Mozart’s most sublime late piano concertos.
In his Piano Concertos Nos 20 and 23, Mozart takes the genre of the concerto to new heights of sophistication and communicative power. The works come from the cherished crop of late piano concertos that are among the jewels of Mozart’s output and have long formed touchstone works for great pianists and recording artists.
Mozart’s music, says Buniatishvili, carries “a simplicity that makes you lost before finding yourself.” She is joined on her recording by an orchestra with a near-unrivaled pedigree in Mozart recording, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.
Mozart wrote his first piano concerto at the age of 11 in 1767. But everything changed in 1781 when the composer moved to Vienna and encountered a discerning public eager to hear piano concertos of increasing scope and variation.
The composer’s Piano Concerto No 20, dating from 1785, is not just the first he wrote in a minor key, it is the first to truly explore the properties that would make Mozart’s later concertos such masterpieces. This thrilling, changeable score forms the turning point in the composer’s project to reimagine the piano concerto as more than a superficial entertainment; to engage audiences in serious reflection and ensnare them with stories of drama, conflict, joy, and loss. It is filled with the smoldering tensions of the composer’s iconic opera Don Giovanni, which launches with an imposing, troubled overture in the same key as the concerto, D minor.
The concerto’s key of D minor carries particular importance for the Georgian pianist. ‘D minor has always been my favorite in Mozart’s music,’ Buniatishvili says, referring to the sophisticated way in which the composer hides the comic inside the tragedy in works including the opera Don Giovanni. ‘It is the unbearable heaviness of a pain transformed into a sigh of relief, which weirdly resembles happiness,’ she says, drawing comparison with the late Milan Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
A year after his D minor concerto, in March 1786 Mozart wrote his Piano Concerto No 23, a score filled with the spirit of another of the composer’s operatic masterpieces, Le nozze di Figaro, written at the same time. In this bold, spontaneous piece the sense of conversation is deepened further still, with instruments including the solo piano appearing as characters with distinct personalities vying for attention. It contains a sublime slow movement in the ‘black pearl’ key of F sharp minor.
After strong statements in the music of Liszt, Schubert, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Mussorgsky, and the folk music of her native Georgia, Buniatishvili is well placed to put her formidable pianism and fearless musical imagination in the service of Mozart’s singular combination of the human and the divine. Her recording also includes the composer’s so-called ‘sonata facile’ or ‘little sonata for beginners’ - a work whose outward simplicity enshrines a playful introduction to the art of composition. It was written in 1788, three years before the composer died, and only published after his death. Again, it occupies a telling key in Mozart’s oeuvre: the pure and radiant C major.
Buniatishvili recorded her album at Air Studios in London with the famed Academy of St Martin in the Fields - the orchestra whose recordings of operas, symphonies and concertos by Mozart under its music director Sir Neville Marriner became classics and which recorded the 13 Gold Disc-winning soundtrack to the iconic film Amadeus.
Khatia Buniatishvili will play Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos 20 and 23 around the world in the coming season, including, in December 2024, as part of her residency at the Barbican Centre in London, where she will be joined by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. For more information, visit: https://www.khatiabuniatishvili.com/
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ABOUT KHATIA BUNIATISHVILI
Renowned French-Georgian pianist, humanitarian, and Cartier ambassador (and mom, if applicable) Khatia Buniatishvili is a classical superstar. With more than 1.2 million Spotify listeners and 300K+ Instagram followers, her recordings and performances encompass an unparalleled depth and intensity, from the works of virtuoso pianist Chopin to collaborating with artists today like Coldplay and ASAP ROCKY. Khatia has also collaborated with top orchestras and conductors like the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Zubin Mehta, and Gustavo Dudamel. A recipient of two ECHO Klassik Awards, Khatia made her performance debut at age six with the Chamber Orchestra of Tbilisi, leading her to grace esteemed venues such as Carnegie Hall and London’s Royal Festival Hall. She is fluent in five languages. Khatia regularly participates in benefit concerts supporting refugees, human rights, and music education worldwide. She has been called the “Beyoncé of classical music" (France 2 / Le Petit Journal), "one of today's most exciting and technically gifted young pianists” (The Guardian) & “so effortless that the piano appeared to play itself” (Los Angeles Times).
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For more information, contact Rebecca Shapiro, Shannon Cosgrove, and Moya Crowley at Shore Fire Media