In the final event of this season's Southbank international piano series, Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili gave a recital that could boast barnstorming pianism and outstanding musicality – though the two did not always meld together in an ideal union.

She began impressively, with Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit a firm statement of virtuoso intent, combined with high musical values. Buniatishvili conjured three distinctive atmospheres in Ravel's triptych, moving from an eerie and unsettling Ondine through a claustrophobic Le Gibet to a frenetic and phantasmagorical Scarbo. Flaunting her technical command over notoriously intractable material, she also created three darkly fascinating musical experiences.

Moving on to a group of Brahms' late intermezzi, Buniatishvili achieved a peak of finely gradated control, her tonal delicacy allowing an occasional impressionistic wash to blur the edges of the late-Romantic harmony – to magical effect.

Following the interval, Chopin's Second Scherzo fared less well. The main section lost rhythmic shape and structure in an interpretation that put flamboyant dexterity before artistic expression – though the middle section held together more successfully. Despite innumerable bravura sweeps up and down the keyboard, Ravel's La Valse, in the composer's own, impossibly daunting version for solo piano, too quickly lost touch with the metrical certainties of the Viennese waltz, whose devastating implosion in the final bars needed more expert preparation. Brittle and brilliant, Stravinsky's Three Movements from Petrushka had more bite, though again virtuoso effects tended to become ends in themselves rather than providing expressive means.

After such astonishing feats, it was something of a relief to turn to the first encore, a Handel minuet in an arrangement by Wilhelm Kempff, delivered with fine legato and lucid textures. To close, Buniatishvili went for the third movement of Prokofiev's Seventh Sonata – hammer and tongs.

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