The popularity of thematic albums has led violinist Lisa Batiashvili and her publisher Deutsche Grammophon to group together three masterpieces which relate in some way to literature that falls under the broad label of “Secret Love Letters”.
Presented as a blend of chamber and symphonic music, this recording offers a wonderfully romantic version of César Franck’s celebrated Sonata in A major, which may have served as a basis for Marcel Proust’s Vinteuil sonata. With the help of incredible young Georgian pianist Giorgi Gigashvili, Lisa Batiashvili offers an interpretation that is simultaneously fiery, poetic and dreamy. The two musicians take their time, stretching out the phrases in perfect complicity. The violin is breathtaking; this is art in the truest sense of the word.
This sumptuous sound can be heard again later when the Philadelphia Orchestra (conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin) casts the magical spells hidden within Karol Szymanowski’s Premier Concerto, Op. 35. Inspired by a long poem by Tadeusz Miciński, this unique work (which is a “concerto” in name only) rustles with the sounds of nature and possesses a burning eroticism. It also has a sonic outlook which is often reminiscent of Stravinski’s The Firebird.
Ernest Chausson’s admirable Poème pour violon seals the sincere friendship between the French composer and the Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. Far from slavishly illustrating Turgenev’s short story on which he based his work, Le Chant de l’amour triumphant expresses the mysterious and noble side of the tale.
Lisa Batiashvili and Giorgi Gigashvili also offer Claude Debussy’s very first melody, Beau Soir, as an encore, using the arrangement once created by Jascha Heifetz. © François Hudry/Qobuz