Famed Pianist Ohlsson Plays Russian Masters with ASO

Renowned as one of the world’s leading exponents of Chopin, Garrick Ohlsson is a pianist of exceptional virtuosity and artistry in the entire piano literature.

Ohlsson is known for his masterly performances of the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, as well as the Romantic repertoire and the Russian masters.

It is toward Russia that Ohlsson will direct his prodigious talent Saturday and Sunday Sept. 13 and 14 at Miller Symphony Hall, when he appears with the Allentown Symphony Orchestra in its fall season opening concert under the baton of Diane Wittry.

Ohlsson is the soloist in Rachmaninoff’s romantic “Rhapsody on a Theme” by Paganini, in an all-Russian program that also includes the overture to Borodin’s “Prince Igor” and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in D Minor.

Ohlsson, the 2014 recipient of the $50,000 Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance, performs throughout the world, with more than 80 concertos, ranging from Haydn and Mozart to works of the 21st century, at his command.

The biennial Gimbel Lane award honors pianists who have achieved the highest levels of national and international recognition. Previous winners include Richard Goode (2006), Stephen Hough (2008), Yefim Bronfman (2010) and Murray Perahia (2012).

Born and raised in Bronxville, N.Y., Ohlsson began piano studies at age 8 and entered the Juilliard School at age 13. Although he won first prizes at the 1966 Busoni Competition in Italy and the 1968 Montreal Piano Competition, it was his 1970 triumph at the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, where he won the Gold Medal — the first American to do so — which brought him worldwide recognition.

At one time, it was fashionable to dismiss Rachmaninoff as a second-rate composer who wore his heart on his sleeve, but Ohlsson has constantly demonstrated that there’s plenty of muscle in Rachmaninoff’s musical craft, and plenty of muscle is what Ohlsson’s got, although in addition to massive technique, he can play with a tenderness and sensitivity that belie his bulk.

Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini” demands both sensitivity and strength. Composed in 1934, it consists of an introduction followed by 24 variations on the last of Paganini’s 24 caprices for solo violin — a set of variations in itself. The theme was a favorite subject of 19th-century composers for large-scale variations works, among them Schumann, Liszt and Brahms.

Rachmaninoff had his own highly original thoughts on the subject. “In my own compositions, no conscious effort has been made to be original or Romantic or Nationalistic or anything else. I write down on paper the music I hear within me, as naturally as possible. I am a Russian composer and the land of my birth has influenced my temperament and outlook,” he wrote shortly before his death in 1943.

That’s especially evident in the work’s swooning 18th variation, in which the minor-key Paganini theme is inverted to become a major-key, inescapably Russian theme. Even more inspired is the way Rachmaninoff combines the theme with the hellish medieval “Dies irae” in the 7th, 10th and 24th variations — a clever comment on the popular myth that Paganini had sold his soul to the devil for his skill on the violin.

If Rachmaninoff’s Russia influenced his temperament and outlook, as he tells us, what about Shostakovich? His Symphony No. 5 was written at the height of the Stalinist purges of 1937 when millions of Soviet citizens were forcibly relocated, exiled and/or killed outright. With this work, Shostakovich was emerging from a period of total musical banishment, calling it “a response to my critics.”

“From the opening battle between upper and lower strings to the complete desolation and apathy of the violin melody a few bars later, imagining Shostakovich’s personal viewpoint can’t help but have an impact on how to interpret his music in a heightened way,” writes Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Equally enigmatic is that rousing march at the work’s ending — was the symphony meant to celebrate Stalin’s regime or did it contain hidden messages protesting the very system it seemed to support? Listeners will have to decide for themselves whether this intriguing work expresses blatant patriotic fervor or is music born of fear.