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Before Mariam Batsashvili's new solo album Influences with works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Liszt will be launched by Warner Classics on 16 May, single releases are already whetting the appetite for the album.
In June 2024, Mariam Batsashvili was once again a guest at the Klavier Festival Ruhr. In a very personal interview with festival director Katrin Zagrosek in the run-up to the festival, she spoke about what composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Franz Liszt mean to her.
Newborns as music critics: With Liszt's Liebestraum No. 2, Mariam Batsashvili starts a series of recordings of "baby-friendly" works from the piano repertoire.
Franz Liszt, Après une Lecture du Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata
Franz Liszt, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 S.244/2
Franz Liszt, Piano Concerto No. 1 E-flat major
Franz Liszt, Les préludes
Mariam Batsashvili, piano
Meininger Hofkapelle
Kilian Farell, conductor
“The sensitivity and accuracy with which she presents lyrical passages with airy lightness is breathtaking. In the Andante, one and the other's heart might even have skipped a beat as she sensitively let the melody, which then developed almost majestically, resound from the initial repeated notes. Her precise and very fine touch characterised the entire evening in the most exhilarating way, with sparkling runs and striking bass lines flowing from her fingers with such effortless ease that humour was always peeking around the corner.” Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 4/6/2024
Charisma, brilliance, and depth of expression are qualities with which Mariam Batsashvili captivates not only live audiences worldwide. The Georgian pianist has also long secured her place among the top ranks in the recording and streaming market since signing exclusively with the major label Warner in 2019: another highlight in a steep career that has taken her to over 30 countries and the world's most important concert halls to date. Besides major musical centers like Berlin, London, Paris, or Vienna, Mariam Batsashvili is a frequent guest at international festivals such as the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, where she debuted in 2019, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Milan Festival Piano City, the Festival Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse, or the Beethovenfest Bonn. Outside Europe as well, Mariam Batsashvili is among the most sought-after interpreters of the great piano literature from Bach to late Romanticism.
At least since her internationally acclaimed victories at the Franz Liszt Competitions in Weimar (2011) and Utrecht (2014), Mariam Batsashvili's career has been closely linked to the name of this central musical figure of the 19th century – who was also the focus of her Warner debut album Chopin Liszt in 2019. After her first encounter during lessons with Natalie Natsvlishvili in her native Tbilisi, Mariam Batsashvili was able to further expand her Liszt experiences as a student of Grigory Gruzman in Weimar and through inspiring exchanges with legendary Liszt interpreters like Leslie Howard. Besides her distinctive artistry of touch (Anschlagskunst), media such as the British Observer or the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” praise not least Batsashvili's feel for the "inner world" and the "nonchalant poetry" of Liszt's music, highlighting her soulful playing even in the most virtuoso passages.
Beyond Liszt's works, the pianist – who in the past decade was part of two of the world's most exclusive young talent programs as a "Rising Star" of the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) and as a "BBC New Generation Artist" – earns enthusiastic reactions from audiences and the specialist press for her interpretations of the piano works of Schubert, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms. Also in the current 2024/25 season, she will return to major concert halls such as the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, London's Wigmore Hall, the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg or the BBC Proms with this repertoire; a further album release is also planned for spring 2025. The fact that Mariam Batsashvili is also very successful in the social media sphere, with over 70,000 followers, is thanks to the illustrative short tutorials on technical and performance practice issues that she has regularly provided to professional and amateur pianists on Instagram for several years.
2024/25 season
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J.S. Bach: Partita No. 2 C minorF. Schubert: 4 Impromptus, Op. 90F. Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsodies Nos. 11, 12, 13, 14W.A. Mozart: Sonata No. 18 K.576J. Brahms: Six Pieces for Piano, Op. 118F. Schubert: 4 Impromptus, Op. 142
(for the season of 2024/25)
"It was obvious from the brilliance of these performances, and the fearlessness with which she attacked the rhapsodies’ most extreme technical challenges, that she really does have a special affinity with [Liszt]."
The Guardian, Andrew Clements, 23 January 2025
"Mariam Batsashvili was born for the piano. [...] Fragile and modest, yet determined and focused, gentle and kindly smiling, and at times – a volcano of energy."
7md, Daiva Tamošaitytė, 20 December 2024
"Mariam Batsashvili served this up with breathtaking ease and elegance."
Hamburger Abendblatt, Elisabeth Richter, 9 October 2024
“[...] one thing is certain: through Batsashvili Liszt speaks to a new generation.”
Pianist UK, Peter Quantrill, Aug/Sept 2020
“Her technical prowess and ability to negotiate Liszt’s showy grandeur is a given, but her sense of his inner world, his wistful, nonchalant poetry – in the Grande études in A flat or the Consolations (Pensées poétiques) or the Polish Songs after Chopin – sets her apart as one to watch.”
The Observer, Fiona Maddocks, 18/09/2019
“Mariam Batsashvili began Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B minor powerfully – but not with violence, rather with grandeur. […] The young pianist has a superbly clear attack, and technically speaking plays perfectly, without being interested in perfection or making a show of it. No, she is interested in something quite different: in maintaining intimate contact with the accompanying orchestra, for example, not only with her playing, but also physically, with looks and gestures. She understands music making as concert-giving in the best sense – together.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung, Egbert Tholl, 13/05/2017
“With its extreme technical challenges, the work [Liszt’s Sonata in B minor] is not easily accessible for a wide audience. The night before last, however, these difficulties didn’t seem to be a hindrance, rather an incentive for the young star pianist from Georgia, who knew to emphasise to the full the expressive moments in the distinctive thundering ostinato passages.”
Heraldo de Aragón, Luis Alfonso Bes, 26/04/2017
“Batsashvili is a brilliant and imaginative musician who infuses her playing with a suggestive tension.”
Eindhovens Dagblad (The Netherlands)
Mariam Batsashvili
Warner Classics, Aug 2019, 9222525