Boston Classical Review

An expansive and impassioned survey of violin sonatas highlighted the concert by Lisa Batiashvili and Giorgi Gigashvili Friday night at Jordan Hall, the final classical event of the season for Vivo Performing Arts.

The program traced the ways Beethoven, Prokofiev, and Franck developed and personalized the violin sonata form with a brief side trip to the Georgian violinist’s contemporary compatriot, Josef Bardanashvili.

The sonatas on the program are virtuosic by nature, and each carries a specific style and challenge that demands its own interpretive approach. Batiashvili and Gigashvili met all obstacles with ease and in delightful fashion.

The evening opened with Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 12, no. 3—a work that famously established the piano and violin as equal partners. In the first movement, Batiashvili produced a large, strong tone with seemingly effortless bowing while Gigashvili played with robust authority. The Adagio con molto espressione found Gigashvili stepping into the spotlight with the long-lined right-hand melody, the violin slipping into accompaniment before the two exchanged roles. Batiashvili’s lyrical lines were perfectly distributed, neither too lush nor too restrained. The Rondo Allegro molto was jubilant and free, the scurrying virtuoso lines never encumbering the music’s good humor.

Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor occupies an entirely different world. Composed during the Second World War, his Op. 80 is an athletic work yet with a dark mood and carefully developed themes. The Andante assai unfolded with anxious tremolos before revealing its main theme in the bass line; Batiashvili’s double stops were passionate without strain, her counterpoint emerging with deceptive ease. The recapitulation was extraordinary—virtuosic playing at near-pianissimo, pizzicato darting above a dark bass theme. 

In the Allegro brusco the music turns harsh and accented, Prokofiev at his most aggressive, yet the duo never lost control while conveying the music’s force. After such ferocity, the second movement arrived like balm with Batiashvili’s muted violin floating above Gigashvili’s chromatic ostinatos in the evening’s most dreamlike passage. The Allegrissimo finale threw every technique at its performers—yet no horsehair snapped, and the duo hardly looked to break a sweat.

After intermission came a short work by Josef Bardanashvili—To Gia Kancheli (P.S.), a tribute to the late Georgian composer. Bardanashvili, also Georgian-born, infused the piece with dance-like rhythms and folk melodies; Batiashvili and Gigashvili played the tribute with the warmth of deep familiarity in a quiet moment of national kinship between the program’s canonical works.

Franck’s highly chromatic Violin Sonata in A Major closed the program. The Allegretto ben moderato, in Franck’s truncated sonata-allegro form, drew the evening’s most inspired violin playing—Batiashvili’s lyrical lines floated above Gigashvili’s sweeping left-hand arpeggios, the pianist letting the melody ring clear through the textural density. 

The ensuing Allegro was more forceful and turbulent (Some scholars posit that the opening Allegretto is really an introduction to the Allegro as the sonata’s first movement proper.) The Recitativo-Fantasia offered the evening’s most lyrical music, recasting melodic material from the prior movements through Franck’s signature cyclic form. The final movement brought a passionate close, no phrase left unshaped by the musician, with every gesture marked by affectionate playing.

Following an immediate standing ovation, Batiashvili and Gigashvili returned for two song arrangements as encores, clad in Celtics gear in a playful and affectionate nod to the Boston audience. They began with Giya Kancheli’s “When Almonds Blossomed,” completing the introspective Georgian thread that had run through the evening. The duo then closed with Debussy’s chanson “Beau Soir,”bringing the concert to a tender end.

Posted in Performances

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