''For her debut album, Tamar Beraia, a 27-year-old Georgian pianist, offers a richly comprehensive programme. Her quicksilver brilliance lends a special wit and charm to Haydn’s D major Sonata, HobXVI/37, and she is admirably sensitive in the contrasting gravity of the central Largo e sostenuto. Beethoven’s early G major Sonata, Op 14 No 2, is, again, as fleet and dextrous as you could wish even if, ideally, you miss the wealth of character, of light and shade, of Kempff, while Liszt’s First Mephisto Waltz is dispatched with skittering aplomb.
However, Beraia truly comes into her own in her winged and delectable performance of Schumann’s Carnaval. Here any reservations concerning surface facility vanish. Dazzling virtuosity (try ‘Papillons’ and ‘Pause’) are complemented by the most stylish voicing and inflections (‘Valse noble’). The entire performance breathes new and exhilarating life into a familiar masterpiece.
The Bach-Busoni Chaconne is impetuous and individual, light years away from, say, Michelangeli’s autocracy. Yet it is entirely successful in its own terms. Hopefully we shall be hearing much more of this exceptional artist. BR-Klassik’s sound for eaSonus leaves nothing to be desired and Carmen Delia Romero’s glowing tribute to Beraia is richly deserved.'' Gramophone