Chopin: Sonata No. 2, Concerto No. 2

Marvelous technique

It's great.

She does things in a different way than I would, however, I no longer believe that there is only one way to interpret music. Its just different from my own style. I like to tell a story with my playing, she is playing just the music.

How any pianist can omit the repeat of the exposition in the first movement of Chopin's Op 35 Sonata is beyond me. It destroys the entire movement. That aside, the playing is not rubato, it's inconsistent. The wild swing in tempo isn't rubato. The closing theme is taken much too fast. The perplexing final movement is just out of whack with disconcerting accents not in the score. On the positive side she does a beautiful job on the opening movement's subordinate theme and the march. However, one must really think twice before recording such an iconic work. Think of the approaches taken by Argerich, Uchida, and Grimaud. They put much more thought into this magnificent sonata. The waltz Op 64 n 2 is taken too quickly and without subtlety in the reprise. Also it's supposed to be played piano then pianissimo. It seems that 90% of pianists miss that. I think she is a talented individual that needs some guidance. .

Buniatishvili offers a steller reading of Chopin in this recital. This is the mark of a true artist and one has the sense that the pianist has a probing and deep musical soul . Her sense of rubato is exactly what Chopin called for in these works and her technique is without fault. It shimmers and gleams though Chopin's pianistic fireworks. Sony's production here is well above average compared to it's other classical endevors. This recording is a must by. -Bz