“Rounding out the first half of the performance, Pianist Garrick Ohlsson returned to Heinz Hall to complete this season’s cycle of Rachmaninoff concertos with the Concerto No. 4 in G minor. Soloist and orchestra handed off melodies and gestures flawlessly, their interplay a pleasure to experience. Mr. Ohlsson’s playing is supremely polished, and he’s able to coax one of the largest…

Garrick Ohlsson is a pianist of vast vocabulary. He has a broader repertoire than most in his upper-echelon crowd, but he also specializes in the art of the recital, smartly focused on a single composer. In 2010, he brought to a Lobero recital his acknowledged mastery of Chopin (he was the only American to win the Chopin Competition, in 1970). Last Saturday, the Ohlsson program was all-Brahms,…

“Not every measure of Busoni’s epic, rarely heard Piano Concerto will linger in the mind, but the performance as a whole given by pianist Garrick Ohlsson was one of those musical experiences that will go down on everyone’s permanent mental record. Few pianists on Earth have the desire, talent, and sheer fortitude to perform the Busoni, a titanic, grandly virtuosic work from 1904…

“Opening with a brass fanfare, Ohlsson entered right away with an impressive and ostentatious piano solo, followed by grandiose chords echoed by the orchestra. The work’s slower melancholy passages were punctuated by wickedly fast piano scales, as Ohlsson’s fingers glided to and from each end of the piano. The piano was executed so quickly that the notes blended together into a massive…

“Ohlsson beautifully acknowledged the second movement’s lyricism and, in the bravura final movement, gave stature to the music without overselling it.” The Inquirer “Saturday’s soloist was Garrick Ohlsson. He attacked the score’s towering technical demands with unflappable aplomb and invested his dazzling digital display with structural integrity and melting lyricism…