„Beguiling intensity“ - Lisa Batiashvili with the Berliner Philharmoniker

As part of her residency, Lisa Batiashvili performed Szymanowski's Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Berliner Philharmoniker under the direction of Kirill Petrenko. She performed on 14, 15 and 16 February in Berlin, with further concerts on 19 February in Vienna and 23 February in Hamburg.

"The violin mostly plays in the highest register, which tends to sound rather thin and metallic, but Lisa Batiashvili knows how to elicit a full tone of beguiling intensity from her Guarneri violin through a lush vibrato. She shakes the technically extremely demanding cadenza seemingly easily from her wrist, and she also hits the delicate harmonics with phenomenal assurance." (Berliner Morgenpost, 16/02/2024, Mario-Felix Vogt)

„The ‘letter’ was given a gossamer performance by Lisa Batiashvili swirling in passionate purple sequins. She captures radical tonality in rapid shifts, giving the impression of a highly chromatic and changing logic. The violin is hypnotic; the orchestra, more controlled.“ (Slippedisc.com 15.02.2024 Susan Hall)

"The Philharmoniker's playing is fragrant and delicate, and at the same time enchanting in the most refined way. And then Lisa Batiashvili's violin rises out of this paradise garden atmosphere in a wondrous, wordless song. It could come from a fairytale bird of enchantment, flying its circles, seemingly effortlessly, in the highest spheres." (Tagesspiegel, 16/02/2024, Frederik Hanssen)

"In the hands of Lisa Batiashvili, these notes, an idiosyncratic solitaire of early modernism, are transformed into a sensual, intense cloud of perfume. With the exception of brief approaches to the ground, the violin part floats at the highest heights above its orchestral framing, completely detached from the corset of late romantic tonality. [...] Elegant like a haute couture gown, glittering, often enveloped by just a hint of indefinable chordal gossamer, with an expressive grand solo cadenza in the final section, which Batiashvili narrated as suspensefully as a mysterious thriller." (Hamburger Abendblatt, 26/02/2024, Joachim Mischke)