“Pianist Garrick Ohlsson joined New and the orchestra for the work, bringing unapologetic athleticism to the starkly dramatic opening passage and later, still in the first movement, to the torrential cadenza. Ohlsson made the piano sing in the gently elusive middle movement, rich with overtones of Rachmaninoff and Schumann with only an occasional nod to the twentieth century; he moved full…

“When it comes to pianists, it’s often illuminating to trace pedagogical lineages. American pianist Garrick Ohlsson can trace his back to Franz Liszt, via one of Ohlsson’s teachers, the great Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau, and Arrau’s teacher, Liszt student Martin Krause. It’s a form of nobility. And nobility is exactly what came to mind on Sunday night when listening to Ohlsson’s…

“From Brahms’ early Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 5, and the Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35, Book II, to the mature Op. 79 Rhapsodies and the Op. 116 Fantasies, Ohlsson’s every phrase illuminated important aspects of this rich body of piano music, amplifying the sheer joy of experiencing Brahms played with such command and panache.” San Diego Story

“Ohlsson used his pianistic soft power — a commanding technical arsenal deployed with judicious restraint — in the service of Beethoven’s penchant for insistence, pushing the first movement’s boil of trills and passagework to the foreground, making the slow movement’s pleas hushed and voluble by turn. By the rambunctious finale, ensemble and soloist were on the same quirky page,…