“Lisa Batiashvili was the ferocious soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, intense in the first movement, luminous and heartfelt in the second, scintillating in the quickfire finale. It was a faultless performance, enthralling and electrifying. … In the tender Canzonetta, with its quietly sobbing accompaniment, Batiashivili played as if singing an aria. We were in the melancholy landscape of Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin, premiered in 1879, a year after the violin concerto.”

– Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian

“The first half of the second concert in the series was no less glorious, as Lisa Batiashvili joined Barenboim and his band for Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D. There was no trace of vanity in her playing or her body-language, and she presided over the orchestra as persuasively as Argerich had done – indeed, for much of the time Barenboim let this young Georgian virtuoso set the pace. She brought classical restraint to this high-Romantic music, with no indulgence in swoops or slides apart from the ones dictated by the score, and she delivered those – even when rapidly double-stopped – with flawless ease and precision; for the Canzonetta she found a chaste beauty of sound.”

– Michael Church, The Independent

“Lisa Batiashvili was the soloist in a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto that was lithe in the solo violin music, but bold and full-throated from the orchestra. Her sound is slim, with darker colours held in reserve, and her style unaffected. Every note was crystal clear even in the fastest music and Barenboim played his part by whipping up the excitement in the finale.”

– Richard Fairman, Financial Times