Tsintsadze Miniatures For String Quartet

[Agnella Datson]

SulkhanTsintsadze was even a cellist. He was a member in the Georgian State Quartet for which also the first three Miniatures for string quartet were composed. As well as in many other of his compositions the composer, who died 1991 in Tiflis, accessed to Georgian folk songs in the later on 21 pieces enlarged Miniatures for string quartet. The Miniatures belongs so far to the most successful compositions of the Georgian.

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Sulkhan Tsintsadze was even a cellist. He was a member in the Georgian State Quartet for which also the first three Miniatures for string quartet were composed. As well as in many other of his compositions the composer, who died 1991 in Tiflis, accessed to Georgian folk songs in the later on 21 pieces enlarged Miniatures for string quartet. The Miniatures belongs so far to the most successful compositions of the Georgian. 91 pages.

The prolific composer, who was a cellist with the Georgian State String Quartet, wrote operas, ballets, symphonies and concertos. However, it was his collection of miniatures for string quartet based on Georgian folk songs that propelled him to immediate success.

The first movement of the Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1 pours forth like water, smooth and unhesitating around every corner, pooling here and there along the way. In the stillness of those pools are reflections; stirred up they become distortions.

So begins the epic journey that is Dmitri Shostakovich's first violin concerto, written in 1948 under the extreme oppression and persecution by the Soviet government, which in the same year denounced the composer and banned most of his works. The concerto, dedicated to Soviet violinist David Oistrakh, was not performed publicly until 1955.

Violinist Lisa Batiashvili, who was born in Soviet Georgia in the 1970s, brings a native intuition and violinistic mastery to this work in her recently-released Deutsche Grammophon recording with conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen leading the Bavarian Radio Symphony.

Clearly, this is a recording that works. Lisa lived Soviet Georgia until she was 11, moving to Munich, where she studied and lived for 15 years. More recently, she moved to France with her husband and two children, ages two and six.

The recording also includes other works by Soviet emigres: "V & V" by Georgian composer Giya Kancheli, "Spiegel im Spiegel" by Arvo Prt and "Vocalise" by Sergei Rachmaninov. On the lighter side is an arrangement of Shostakovich's "Lyrical Waltz" by Lisa's father, Tamas Batiashvili. She collaborates with pianist Hlne Grimaud for the Prt and Rachmaninov.

Lisa, who plays the 1709 "Engleman" Stradivari on loan from the Nippon Foundation, will play the Bartok Violin Concerto No. 1 with the New York Philharmonic in early May and will also be featured performing with the New York Philharmonic during their European tour, with performances in Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Dresden and Prague during the latter half of May.

Lisa spoke to me over the phone several weeks ago, from Minneapolis, where she was playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. We talked about Shostakovich, life in the Soviet Union and more.

Lisa: The fact that both of my parents were musicians. My father played in a string quartet (the Georgian State Quartet), but at the same time he was teaching young people. I was inspired by the small kids coming to get lessons with my dad, and also my mom was teaching piano. It was something quite evident and natural.

Lisa: When I was two, I had a small violin that I kind of played with myself, without getting any lessons, until I was four. Then when I had my fourth birthday, I asked my dad to really start teaching me. He started giving me violin lessons after my fourth birthday.

Lisa: He was my main teacher until we moved to Germany in 1991. In 1990, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the political situation became unstable, he decided that I should get an education in Europe. We had some friends in Germany who helped us, then I entered the Hamburg Musikhochschule at the age of 11, where I studied for 2-3 years with Mark Lubotsky, who was a pupil of David Oistrakh. I went to Munich when I was 14 and studied with Ana Chumachenko for the the next seven years.

Georgia was pretty far away from Moscow, and the mentality in Georgia was also very different. Georgia is the first country next to the Baltic countries, where they really wanted to escape this communist time and communist regime. My father was already very much aware of western life: his string quartet was traveling and playing concerts everywhere. For him, western Europe was kind of a dream place to go. He used to come back whenever he had these concerts and tell us how wonderful it was.

Lisa: It was a very big deal, especially for my parents. My dad was close to 50 already, and leaving behind everything was very difficult for him. That's one of the reasons why, at age 65, he went back to Georgia. He travels between Germany and Georgia, but his devotion and his love for his country has never stopped. He wants everything possible for his country, which I think is a great quality.

Laurie: When you left, it was primarily so you could go study in Germany -- but the timing was amazing. You left right when things were getting very difficult in Georgia, after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Lisa: We kind of sensed that the political situation was very, very messy in Georgia. After all the time under Soviet rule, suddenly Georgia was left by itself and had to fight against corruption and ex-Communists who were trying to keep their power, and the independent parties...It was getting very chaotic. The day after we left Georgia, there was a civil war that started in our capital city, Tbilisi. So we escaped the war, just by one day.

Laurie: You were telling me that your teacher, Mark Lubotsky, had been a student of David Oistrakh, and of course the Shostakovich was written for Oistrakh. How did this shape the way you look at the Shostakovich concerto?

The last movement is interpreted in very different ways: some people say it's a dance in Hell. Other people say it's delirium, it's somebody who is actually gone over his normal state of mind. Or, it could Shostakovich's explanation: his acceptance of this difficult time, and his effort to cheer himself up. So everybody can have his own imagination. Shostakovich did not necessarily explain every single phrase that he wrote, but I think it's very important to just capture the exact character and the mood of the piece.

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