OTAR TATAKISHVILI: ALLEGRO ALLA BREVE OF THE SECOND PIANO CONCERTO

It is rare for a discovery to be as unexpected and beautiful as the one I made of Otar Taktakishvili this afternoon, while France Musique was dedicating a program to Georgian music.

We know the extraordinary polyphony of the traditional music from this colorful country, whether it be popular music or church music. Georgian is not an Indo-European language, and its very unique prosody has given rise to singular music that follows the contours of the language, offering rich and flavorful textures.

But in the realm of classical music, despite a few well-known names and one or two works, nothing had struck me until now.

It was a very joyful surprise to hear Allegro alla breve from the Second Piano Concerto by this composer with such a percussive name, who had composed the anthem of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia during his student years.

Born to an Abkhazian father and a Georgian countess mother, trained at the Tbilisi Conservatory (in E. Barkhudarian’s class), Taktakishvili played an important role in the cultural life of Georgia, composing many works in various fields, from opera to instrumental concertos, and also holding several official positions (President of the Union of Composers and Minister of Culture).

I generally have a sort of allergy to the works of Soviet musicians, especially those of secondary importance, but honestly, Taktakishvili’s Concerto (wonderfully played by the famous Elisso Virssaladzé under the composer’s direction) surpassed everything one might expect. First, there is a personal language of great coherence and true rigor – a rare thing. And this personal language is a happy synthesis of the percussive piano legacy inherited from Prokofiev, the composer whom Taktakishvili must have felt closest to, and a sort of distillation of Georgian musical traditions measured out with great precision. The relationship between the piano and the orchestra is extremely well-crafted, it’s lively and inventive throughout, with a very voluble piano, a constant force of suggestion, and an orchestration that is both light, in terms of the transparency of colors (a denser texture would have hindered the perpetual motion of this intrepid music), and very controlled. Above all, the work is powerfully original throughout, and I was taken aback, wondering who could have composed it, while it delighted and intrigued me more and more. Truly an unexpected discovery, a true work that brings together all the characteristics of greatness and stands out from the usual production of laborious and not always very refined craftsmen from the Soviet compositional workshops, solid but without transcendence beyond the known masterpieces. A very beautiful discovery, and a newfound interest in this composer whom I only knew by name until now. Kudos to France Musique for uncovering such a gem, recorded in 1976 (the concerto itself dates from 1973).