Get your dirty feet off my nice white sofa

Get your dirty feet off my nice white sofa

News

norman lebrecht

September 09, 2021

An uncouth new publicity photo of the Paris-based Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili, who really ought to know better.

 

She’s not invited onto my yacht again.

Comments

  • Tony Sanderson says:

    Khatia is playing a recital at the Barbican on 20th October. An interesting recital including pieces by Ligeti, Colin,Bach and Satie.

  • Petros Linardos says:

    But photos like this earn publicity on classical music blogs. Great performances not so much.

    • norman lebrecht says:

      Since you understand how we run Slipped Disc so well, please leave this site and start your own. Your daily carping has gone beyond the point of mortal tolerance.

      • Derek H says:

        Norman,

        I don’t know why you are so sensitive to the post, which is mild to so many of the comments on here.

        I would vote for more relevant and informative topics than the rather shallow “instagram” type entries or the mischievous stirring ones.

        Along with others, I rate your experience and views, but recently you have not made the most of them on the site, in my honest opinion.

      • Old Bob says:

        Oh dear – a little over sensitive, methinks

  • Barry Guerrero says:

    Oh, please. I once sat right next to her, opening CD’s that folks were buying (in a lobby) and having autographed by her, and/or by Renaud Capucon. We made some small talk and she absolutely could not have been nicer.

  • Le Křenek du jour says:

    Oh come on, Mr. Lebrecht: given the Cartier hashtag on Khatia’s Twitter feed, she may well have been under contractual obligation to display her ankle jewelry.

    Surely the motoscafo en route to the Biennale di Venezia has seen worse; a fortiori on its way back.
    Surely Cartier can be bothered to pay for the cleaning of the upholstery.

    Out of curiosity: what were the musical motives of your perusing Khatia’s tweet feed, if one may enquire?

    Talking of the Biennale, here’s a more serious peeve: nobody seems to bat an eye, ever, when the Coppa Volpi for Best Actress, Coppa Volpi for Best Actor is awarded. Though the eponymous Giuseppe Volpi, conte di Misurata, would deserve either oblivion or, better, a serious critical debate. The awards were named after Volpi because he presided at their inception, as chairman of the Venice film festival.
    Volpi chaired the film festival from 1932 on because he chaired the Biennale. Take note of the year, 1932: the apogee of Fascism in Italy. Nobody would ascend to that position without being a pillar of the régime, which count Volpi was, having served as Mussolini’s distinguished Finance minister, 1925-28, and president of the Italian Industry Board, Confindustria, the régime’s economic linchpin, 1934-43.
    Btw, the ‘Misurata’ he was count of is the Libyan economic hub of Misrata. Volpi was the governor of Tripolitania 1921-25, and a harsh one; he was ennobled upon his return at Mussolini’s behest.

    Think of this Mussolinian cursus honorum when the Coppa Volpi is presented.

    As I said, nobody bats an eye; but Khatia’s legs on the sofa are good for a brouhaha.

  • caranome says:

    She’s welcome on my yacht anytime.

  • Ludwig's Van says:

    Her playing is also uncouth.

  • Ted says:

    One of the most over-rated pianists ever.

  • Copperfinger says:

    Sadly, most musicians can only afford a toy yacht that floats in the bathtub. Even toy bathtub vessels emulating the progression of the Titanic are beyond our pocketbooks!

  • Musician says:

    Check out her barf-inducing bio:

    http://www.khatiabuniatishvili.com/about/

    “ As Pablo Casals once did before, Khatia Buniatishvili places the human being at the centre of her art. The fundamental values handed down from the Enlightenment are not up for discussion. Were there a fire and a choice to be made between child and painting, she would not hesitate for a second. Yet, once she had pulled the child from the blaze, she would take it to the Museum of Fine Arts so that it might become a painter. No need to save “the fire” (as Cocteau replied) because it already burns her eyes, rages in her fingers and warms her heart.
    Khatia, born in Batumi, Georgia, by the Black Sea, on the longest day of 1987, knows the price of freedom and independence, and understands the energy needed to stand tall in life. The example set by her parents did not go unheeded. During the chaotic period her country went through, Khatia’s parents had to display great resourcefulness to keep poverty at bay. Her mother, who introduced her to music, sewed together magnificent dresses for both her daughters from bits of cloth that she scavenged here and there. The sisters saw before their very eyes a model of creativity for smiling in the face of adversity.
    The piano, however, has never posed a problem for Khatia. She has been blessed with impressive ability, giving her first concert at the age of six. For fun, her mother would leave a new musical score each day on her piano and, hungry, Khatia’s long, octopus-like arms would devour them. As she has never had to struggle with her instrument, she has always considered pianos from the whole world as friends from whom she must draw the best, respecting the oddities of their characters and sampling the charms of their personalities; while at the same time never looking to change them or make them her martyrs. Her sister Gvantsa is an excellent pianist too. Together they make a quite complementary duo as one has her feet on the ground and the other is supersonic.
    Khatia’s great career has come quite naturally, without a struggle. The sun has no need to move mountains to exist for it rises and shines for all. And these are the words that spring to mind when one sees her bursting onto the stage or in life: her hair flowing, her fine figure quite the Parisian, her lips smiling, her light sylph-like steps and her feline body. But the rose will show its thorns if it feels what it holds dear to be threatened. She won’t be made to give up a humanitarian project. She won’t be prevented from helping the country in which she was born and raised. She won’t be forced to play in a land that pours scorn on her values. She won’t have playing partners forced upon her who do not inspire human respect and great artistic admiration in equal measure. For that matter, nothing can be imposed on this young lady of the air whose wing-beats pollinate works and who sprinkles a musical cloud of golden powder to the four winds.
    Franz Liszt is one of her heroes. He was the one with whom she wanted to venture first into the world of discography. Liszt is constantly pushing back the boundaries of what is possible. He innovates and is generous, bringing together popular and academic styles, the profane and sacred, nature and poetry – he transcends whatever he touches.
    Khatia Buniatishvili avoids representation and self-intellectualisation. She could very well make her own the motto of her friend Martha Agerich, “Live and let live” – she too is a Gemini. She likes the complexity of things, not complication; paradoxes, not rigid oppositions that often prove to be sterile. She is at ease creating and less interested in reaction. Stimulated by the dialogue between the arts, she breathes the oxygen of imagination and finds balance in musing.
    When it comes down to it, she remains this child fascinated with life and with beings who was already reading Dostoevsky and Chekhov at the age of nine, and for whom it was already quite clear that beauty would save the world. With no distinctions made: whatever is just will sound just and will make its own mark.
    It is in just such a way that she approaches all styles from Baroque to modern in her CD “Motherland”, to demonstrate that true music has no need of barriers and that all styles fade into the one true all-linking, all-revealing style that can be summed up in Mozart’s words: “Love, love, love, therein lies the soul of genius.”
    Khatia Buniatishvili, shining pianist at the height of her abilities, came into this world in a shower of light during the summer solstice. On a human level, she is attracted more to equinoxes, being smitten by justice and seeking day and night in equal share. By lifting one’s eyes skywards one might notice her playing hide-and-seek with either Venus or Mercury. The cosmos is her garden and it is in its movement that she feels alive, astride a comet.”

    Olivier Bellamy

    • Scott Colebank says:

      Glad to know Liszt is still alive and innovating.

    • Ashu says:

      [For fun, her mother would leave a new musical score each day on her piano and, hungry, Khatia’s long, octopus-like arms would devour them.]

      This is charming, actually, like much of the unintentional hilarity of second language users. I hope my Sanskrit sounds this good.

  • Pianofortissimo says:

    Feet on the white sofa, and fingers on the black and white keys…

  • Dan says:

    We could all use a bit of Klaviagra.
    Any news on Lola Astanova, btw?

  • At present, the comment by Petros Linardos here has 13 upvotes and 20 downvotes. The reply by Norman has 8 upvotes and 22 downvotes.

    The problem is, that voting up or down on a reply will propagate to the original post because this website has this bug. It has been noticed by others.

    So in reality, the comment by Petros likely only has this many downvotes because of all the downvotes on Norman’s reply.

    • norman lebrecht says:

      Have you nothing better to do?

      • PeterB says:

        Mr. Lebrecht, I see you started to reply to criticisms and that “harping” is working on your nerves. So allow me a serious, not at all sarcastic question in a quiet corner where others won’t even see it.

        Is this really what you want with your site? You’re a journalist. You are by far the best-informed person on classical music news that I know. Most of your readership are music professionals. I’d like to come here to learn, to inform myself, to get insights from those professionals. Yet by what seems like an avalanche of denigrating posts and culture war posts, most of which deal with totally marginal phenomena, you invite harping, you invite denigrating, arrogant and redundant replies, and you create an atmosphere on this site that is often suffocating.

        Honestly, why? Clickbait? Surely YOU don’t need that? Are you that angry then? If so, why do you feel the need to constantly share that anger?

        I honestly don’t get it.

        • Maria says:

          Many armchair experts on here who know a lot about music but never had a professional musician’s career and got up and done the job except criticise those who do!

    • Maria says:

      What a bore!

  • Sir David Geffen-Hall says:

    I love it. We need more glamour in our business.

  • Rob says:

    It doesn’t look like she’ll be giving an impromptu midnight recital on Skid Row to raise money for the homeless any time soon.

  • Von Carry-on says:

    This photo prominently features the 2 primary reasons for her success – both of which are located due north of her navel.

  • Micaelo Cassetti says:

    I shall now go and listen to Marlene Dietrich’s “They call me naughty Lola”…

  • Maxwell says:

    Probably only rented…

  • David K. Nelson says:

    I would just mildly observe that a upholstered seat on an OPEN AIR back of a boat is not like the sofa you’d have in your living room. Getting even dirty feet or shoes on it is the least of the indignities it faces (the seagull digestive process, anyone?).

  • MOST READ TODAY: