Lisa Batiashvili

Three major violin concertos – by Beethoven, Brahms and Shostakovich's first – have no shortage of excellent contenders for three star status, in my hierarchy. Probably the only violinist to achieve three stars in all three concertos, is Lisa Batiashvili and I had a mini- Lisa festival yesterday, listening to the three concertos played by her.

Her strengths are well known: Nobility of tone and utterance; a sense of the long line, and an exceptional feeling for phrasing (viz Rachmaninov's Vocalise). She seems to have an uncanny ability to find the right tempo, for her and for the music. She has an excellent range of dynamics. She concentrates on the music, not on highlighting her playing. She has a complete mastery of her instrument (a Strad). And she is an intensely serious player; no Lang-Lang type antics. Finally, she has her pick of good collaborators: Hélène Grimaud, Alice Sara Ott, Khatia Buniatishvili, Stephen Osborne, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Christian Thielemann, Charles Dutoit, Sakari Oramo, Osmo Vänskä ...

Her first Shostakovich violin concerto is truly superb, getting right to the bones of this complex work. Her Beethoven (no conductor on her Sony release) is surprisingly good, despite the absence of a conductor, and the recording is excellent. She has speeded up in this work after a re-think, compared with past off-air recordings. In the Beethoven, she uses the Kreisler cadenza; in the Brahms concerto (with Christian Thielemann) she uses the Busoni cadenza, and her long line creates a superb effect in the adagio. The Brahms concerto is not quite as well recorded as are the Beethoven and Shostakovich concertos; the violin is a little too integrated within the orchestral sound.

To my taste, she is not so good in Bach, and I have the impression that her long line and nobility of tone are perhaps not really ideal for Bach's music. There seem to be a lot of things she does not play, and I cannot find any reference to her playing Kreisler, Wieniawski or Sarasate. It's a shame that she appears not to play the Elgar violin concerto, a work that would suit her well, I sense. Anyway, pretty well everything she does play, she plays superbly and I hope for many more recordings from her whilst she is in her prime.