Khatia Buniatishvili about the war in Ukraine, KI and her daughter

Khatia Buniatishvili, you manage to appeal to a younger generation with your recordings. Is that at all important to you?

As a human being, I think the most important thing is to inspire people. If you can appeal to young people, it’s twice as nice because it’s sustainable. However, during the process of working, I don’t think about it because I concentrate on the music, the composer and myself.

Do you therefore increasingly play popular pieces?

No. I’m not doing anything to increase popularity. There are pieces that generate a lot of clicks, that’s good. But it’s not the goal. I also play sonatas by Liszt or Schubert, which are less popular. People listen to pieces that particularly affect them. The question is why some things are more popular than others.

Why?

Because people want to feel touched. That speaks to people. When Schubert played his pieces, he didn’t want them to become popular. He simply wrote a beautiful song that touched people. Everything else was a consequence of that. I don’t know what will be popular and what won’t. Smaller pieces are probably more accessible these days, especially to young people, because they are used to being exposed to shorter content.

Is this a new phenomenon?

I think so and that’s a shame. I think it’s important that you learn to deal with the same topic over a longer period of time. As a child, watching a long film meant the world to me. Short content was a contrast to the large forms and symphonies I was engaging with, but not a replacement. It’s a shame if you only deal with ten-second videos.

You became a mother a year ago, what will you do to ensure your child doesn’t become addicted to ten-second Tiktoks?

My daughter is only 15 months old. This isn’t something that concerns me very much at the moment. I think through music you can learn to focus. Learning pieces on the piano always motivated me to continue where I was and not constantly divide my attention. It could perhaps help today to find the right way to use Tiktoks and the like.

Is it important to you to pass on music to your daughter?

Yes, I think so. When you listen to classical music and read long books, you discover worlds that would otherwise remain hidden. I try to introduce these worlds to my daughter, and she then decides for herself which of them she wants to enter.

You said in an interview in this newspaper that you were a woman of the 20th century, what did you mean?

I am a nostalgic person. My childhood shaped me and the war in the 20th century. I think it’s à la Proust. I think our impressions from childhood and youth are the strongest. These moments define us and I experienced them in the 20th century.

Do you think art will change fundamentally in this century, do you think that an AI will play more beautifully than humans?

No, an AI cannot play more beautifully.

Why not?

Because art belongs to people. Man created art because he wanted to survive. At the end of his life, man leaves the world and this knowledge tears him apart. Man created something similar to himself out of his own imagination. Art is the most human thing of all. It contains man’s imperfection and it will outlast him. People don’t just want to eat, work, sleep and then die. He becomes more than that.

Do you believe in immortality?

I’m not a believer. By immortality I don’t mean life after death. I mean that through art we can feel that something will outlive us. This makes us feel more alive.

Then AI can’t create art?

Beethoven’s unfinished 10th Symphony was finished using artificial intelligence. That wasn’t Beethoven (laughs). It’s like love. Do you want to go on a date with an artificial intelligence? Maybe yes. But the same thing will never happen as between two people. For me that is unthinkable, which is why I say I am a person of the 20th century. For me it would be the end of humanity. Art belongs to people.

Will that change in the future?

Machines are not made of real organs. You can never feel in an organic sense. You can imitate a feeling, but it will never reach the scope and depth of the human original, because it knows no limits. There is a fundamental difference. There’s a word for it. Wait, I’ll find that word…

Spontaneous?

No, not spontaneously. Similar to spontaneous, but not spontaneous…

You can say it in Georgian and I’ll have an AI translate it.

I’ll call my sister. This is important. “Mon dieu, ça doit venir.” Unpredictable. This is the difference between humans and AI. Humans are unpredictable. There is a Steinway piano that can recreate Horowitz’s recordings without anyone sitting at the piano. That wasn’t Horowitz. The mechanism could calculate and reproduce the speed, the attack, every nuance and still could not be compared with Horowitz. All machines lack the human dimension. Maybe you can call that soul.

Have you previously said that your childhood in Georgia was beautiful and that it shaped you?

“Beautiful” is perhaps the wrong word. Through literature, music and the love of my fellow human beings, she made me rich as a person. Otherwise it was very difficult. It was the 1990s. It was chaotic. There was a lot of crime. There were major financial problems. It was hard, but it was beautiful because I had imagination. That’s what I meant.

Were you in Georgia during the wars in Abkhazia and South Ossetia?

When there was war in Abkhazia, I was there, but I was still very small. The war in South Ossetia was in 2008, and I was no longer in Georgia. I was studying in Vienna at the time, but my family was in Georgia.

How can one compare the fate of Georgia then with that of Ukraine now?

It’s the same scenario. Unfortunately in Ukraine it took forever and the war found its way into people’s everyday lives. In Georgia it only took five days. It was a nightmare. But in Ukraine it is a nightmare without end. The most important thing now is to find an end so that this generation in Ukraine is not deprived of their lives. Because of the wars and the situation in Georgia in the 1990s, we said that my parents’ generation was a lost generation.

Georgian is a very unique language, do you think the language has an influence on the music?

Interesting question. I never thought about it. The Georgian language is a very rich language. In a way it is very similar to German because you can also put words together. This gives an opportunity to improvise and create new words off the cuff. Think of Thomas Mann, who has almost endless phrases and words. Georgian is the same, you can combine words and make long phrases and I like long phrases. Also in music. For example, when I play with the orchestra, I ask that we rehearse longer passages. It could be that this has something to do with how people think in Georgian.

When you perform you are always dressed very elegantly, does that matter?

Not in music. As a person, yes. What I mean by that is that we all have different styles. Our first association with a stranger is based on what that person looks like.

Clothes make the man too?

No. But through the clothes we wear, we can show others more of our own personality. We are all different. You have your nose, I die mine. Style is what we want to show about ourselves.

Would you play differently if you wore sweatpants to a concert?

When I play, I forget everything that’s happening around me. Even aside from the fact that I wouldn’t play in sweatpants, no, I don’t think I would play any other way. I play what I feel, clothes don’t matter. I forget my body, I forget the audience and I forget myself.