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Hi to all members,
as I believe some of you know - as I've announced it some time ago - there's a rather famous piano festival here in Germany, the 'Klavier-Festival Ruhr' which takes place in various cities in the industrial region of Germany, always between June and August.
The first concert I went to this year was not a recital, but a piano concerto - or rather two of them: Garrick Ohlsson played he 5th Prokofiev and the 2nd Rachmaninov, preceded by Duke Ellington's Nutcracker Suite; he was accompanied by the Bochumer Sinfoniker under Steven Sloane. I never heard the latter before, but it's actually quite charming, swinging and with several solo passages for clarinet, trumpet and saxophone. A good idea how to begin a concert!
Now the 5th Prokofiev is an entirely different matter - seldom played (I dimly remember a Bronfman performance in Paris last year), rather stark in appearance without the lyric and sometimes even romantic passages that make the first three concertos so popular; representative of Prokofiev's late style which can be heard in his last piano sonatas (especially the 8th and the 9th). Until now, I had associated Garrick Ohlsson more with Chopin than with Prokofiev, although I knew his repertoire was quite large. Nevertheless, he convinced me that he is indeed a complete pianist, as far as style, musicality and technique are concerned. Already his coming on stage is impressive - I knew he was big, but he's really a giant! One is surprised then to see and hear that he is capable of playing not only the motoric and staccato passages in fff that are present in the Prokofiev concerto, but that he can also shade his touch and come up with an impressive variety of nuances. Although I could see that he really used much force when it was needed, he never sounded harsh or banging - I had the impression of a 'big' sound in a positive sense. Amazing also how flexible wrists someone of his stature has, and how smooth and fast his runs are; on seeing him you wouldn't expect it, to tell the truth. Although the 5th Prokofiev isn't a work I like as much as the second or the third concerto, it was an excellent performance which I enjoyed very much. I was captivated throughout it, and the impression of energy Ohlsson conveyed was exactly what this concerto needed.
After the intermission, another Russian - Rachmaninov - with an entirely different approach to the piano (although, in my opinion, they're not that far apart sometimes - some of Rachmaninov's etudes could be early Prokofiev, too). The second concerto may be one of the most popular concertos nowadays, and to me it still is one of the most beautiful, if correctly played. With this I mean an approach that is sensitive without wallowing in tristesse, played with a virtuosity that is controlled and not ostentatory. Ohlsson of course has the technique needed for that piece, and I believe that because of his large hands some things may be a bit easier for him than for other pianists. Especially in the first and third movements, in the tutti passages where the piano has to make a stand against the orchestra, he produced an incredibly powerful sound, something I had only heard Nelson Freire do before; he had no difficulty being heard against the orchestra, and those passages certainly sent a shiver down my spine! The best part of that concerto was, at least for me, the last movement: played quite fast, yet never with haste or lack of control - everything came across very clearly, and you always had the impression he did exactly what he wanted to do, and had a very clear concept of this movement in his head. To me that was how this movement had to be played, and the orchestra marvellously followed him, even if that sometimes was not that easy. The first two movements, though, were not completely to my liking: Too much rubato, played too slowly (knowing especially that Rachmaninov himself chose rather fast tempi), the phrases were sometimes stretched too much. Of course his touch, the colouring he applied to the second movement, were fantastic in themselves - but to me he did too much of it, sometimes losing the 'fil conducteur' as the French call it, and losing the forward momentum. Bernd Glemser's approach - lighter, less melodramatic, yet with a superb sense of crystalline musicality - is better suited to that work.
The evening finished with two encores - Chopin, of course, two waltzes (I don't remember which ones anymore, the last one was op. 64/2 I believe). He certainly has his own, individual approach to Chopin - sometimes stressing the left hand like Katsaris a bit, no exaggerated tempi or dynamics, yet also very inventive.
If he chooses to play around here again, I certainly will go see him again.
M.B.
P.S. I attach some reviews of that concert that appeard in German newspapers (sorry, no time to translate them all) for those members capable of understanding that language.
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) but I also feel he has made far too many undistinguished recordings, including the whole Chopin series ( sometimes on very badly tuned pianos) 
