Some collectors may be vaguely aware of the Georgian composer/pianist Nodat Gabunia (1933-2000) through his recording of four Beethoven sonatas issued in the 1990s on Sony’s “Infinity Digital” super-budget line. But who knew that he composed an attractive set of eight piano miniatures in 1987 entitled Children’s Pieces for Grown-Ups? Conceived as teaching pieces for advanced pianists, their musical interest goes beyond pedagogical intent.
The opening piece features lovely evocations of bells, while No. 2 is a playful march that one might mistake for Kabalevsky. No. 3’s scampering scales conjure up images of swirling butterflies rather than the wrestlers mentioned in the title. No. 4’s innocuous theme expands and develops in surprising ways. No. 5 (“Playing Catch”) features rising and falling patterns that alternate between rushing outbursts and sudden stops. I like how No. 6’s simple lyrical melody assiduously ascends into the piano’s higher registers. No. 7 (“Chit-Chat”) is essentially a study in fast two-note phrases between hands. Perhaps my favorite of the batch is the concluding Waltz, with its harmonically restless twists and turns.
Ketevan Sepashvili’s cultivated and colorful pianism seems so right for this music that I took her interpretations for granted while listening. That’s harder to do with the Chopin Preludes Op. 28, where Sepashvili faces immense catalog competition. Her square phrasing of the first Prelude lacks inner agitation, while she lays too heavily on No. 2’s steady progression of eighth notes. No. 3’s left-hand arpeggios transpire in smooth arcs, yet never quite take wing. However, No. 5’s rhetorical touches work because they don’t pull focus from Chopin’s cross-rhythmic polyphony.
Sepashvili convincingly sustains her moody and protracted No. 6. Although she holds back in No. 8, the textural layering is clear and consistent. Following a ponderous and prosaic No. 9, Sepashvili gives each of No. 10’s descending runs a slightly different emphasis. Tiny end of phrase hesitations impede No. 12’s driving momentum, in contrast to the pianist’s fluid and smartly shaped No. 15 “Raindrop Prelude”; too many young pianists bear down on the repeated notes in the central climax, and bludgeon them to smithereens.
Sepashvili’s No. 16 is hardly the most fiery or dynamic on disc, yet her clean and vividly detailed execution impresses. She plays No. 19’s difficult arpeggio figurations cautiously, and doesn’t unleash No. 24’s full fury, although No. 22’s combative chords between the hands gather urgency and intensity as they progress. In short, not all of Sepashvili’s interesting ideas in the Chopin come off, but her Gabunia is a keeper.
