Photo credit: Lenny's Studio
Imagine someone winning three international piano competitions between the ages of 17-21. Garrick Ohlsson did that; the Busoni, Montreal and Chopin Piano Competition, of which he is the only American to do so. His career was launched and with it an ongoing discography that includes the complete sonatas of Scriabin, piano concertos of Beethoven, extensive works by Griffes and Chopin – a composer of whom is perhaps most identifiable with his artistic DNA. Having attended The Juilliard School and subsequent input from legendary pianist Claudio Arrau, Ohlsson enjoys global recognition as soloist and chamber music collaborator, doing it all with an expansive repertoire that includes a premiere and recording of Justin Dello Joio’s Oceans Apart Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (Bridge Records, 2023).
Ohlsson’s upcoming May 21 concert at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara will be an all-Chopin event, featuring a blockbuster selection of pieces: nocturnes Op. 9, No. 3, Op. 15, No. 1, impromptu, Op. 36, scherzo Op. 39, Fantaisie Op. 49, Barcarolle Op. 60 and piano sonata Op. 58 - go-to essentials for advanced pianists to study and perform. In conversation, Ohlsson says, “Chopin’s work often reaches a kind of perfection in which there isn’t one note too many or too few, and the artistic concept is fully realized.”
Ohlsson comments that his approach to the interpretation of Chopin has changed over the years in an organic sense, perhaps influenced from living with familiar pieces for over 50 years and teaching students at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. “I never try to change for the sake of difference. I, like most artists, are constantly rethinking many aspects of music making, large and small. I learn from other musicians and listening to singers. I learn from teaching, which focuses one to articulate complex ideas and concepts.”
He reflects on a regeneration process that musicians experience when playing the same pieces throughout a career. “If you hear a recording of a Chopin piece I made in the 1970’s, then the same in the 1990’s and 2020’s, etc., there will be similarities and differences. The similarities are like genetic fingerprints, characteristic of one individual. Other things like pacing and pulse may vary. Many elements of music are objective, unchangeable and many aspects are subjective.” These takeaways will certainly be in play this October with Ohlsson as Head Juror of Warsaw’s International Chopin Piano Competition.
Ohlsson’s consistency through the years seems tied to an instinctual understanding about a composer’s wishes, both in terms of musical and technical requirements. And notwithstanding a height difference – Chopin was about 5 feet, 6 inches compared with Ohlsson at 6 feet, 4 inches – his playing evokes an inspired bond with Chopin’s oeuvre, then and now, as expressed in a New York Times review of his performance at the 1970 Chopin competition: “Mr. Ohlsson’s forceful style and technique had made him the popular favorite with Polish audiences and music critics during the 3-week long contest.”
Of course, there are written impressions about Chopin’s persona at the keyboard and away from it which provide perspective about his demeanor and playing. During Chopin’s tour of the UK in 1848, a review of his concert in Edinburgh provides a revealing snippet: “The infinite delicacy and finish of his playing, combined with great occasional energy never overdone, is striking, when we contemplate the man – a slender and delicate-looking person…” Various schools of pianistic thought have developed a kind of Waze map about how Chopin’s music should be played, including aspects of heavy-duty romantic muscularity, fragility (due to this composer’s health issues and performances on a mellifluous sounding Pleyel piano) and overlying technical bravura (associated with some of the innovative Etudes, Op. 10 and Op. 25) – or a sprinkling of all these attributes mixed with sensibility and personalization.
Some pianists devote a large part of their repertoire to Chopin and stylistic differences can be quite striking when listening to recordings of luminaries like Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz or high-profile contemporaries. When searching for an ultimate interpretation of Chopin’s works (should it exist) a sense of intuition seems a good thing, as well as some knowledge of this composer’s musical provenance. Ohlsson’s comment offers insight. “I can’t possibly describe Chopin’s personality, as I never met him. But he was a revolutionary in music – he pushed the boundaries of what can be done, athletically with the human hand and the tonal qualities which that hand can produce. He pushed harmonic boundaries which influenced the whole 19th century.”
If Chopin were around today, he most likely would have shopped at upscale stores for garb and haircare products. Ohlsson adds more background. “In life, Chopin was a loyalist, I would guess, quite a snob. He taught wealthy people and aristocrats piano and charged a lot, payment on the mantle before the lesson. He knew his worth. He detested large halls and his playing was best heard in elegant salons, where he did not have to project and win over the crowd.” And regarding Chopin’s particularities, Ohlsson adds, “He was refined, of exquisite taste in all things – music, art, food, clothes, carriages. And he was the most perfect artist. He struggled for six weeks to write and capture on paper the magic of a nocturne he had just improvised.”
Chopin’s significant other was the piano (which outlasted his relationship with author George Sand), and since a majority of his works were written for the instrument he and Franz Liszt transformed all things pianistic. Garrick Ohlsson’s upcoming Chopin recital in Santa Barbara should be a moment of reflection in a career well spent in capturing the essence of what this composer represents. “Chopin’s music sounds spontaneous but is a result of time and inter struggle.”
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