Pianist Helps Symphony Open Season

UNPUBLISHED CORREECTION: The name of Garrick Ohlsson was misspelled in this story.

He looks like he might be more aptly dressed in a football uniform than in the formal white-tie-and-tails of the concert stage. But Garrick Ohlssohn, despite his formidable appearance, has won a reputation as a pianist capable of playing with an almost magical delicacy as well as brilliant grandeur.

A Polish critic referred to Ohlssohn as a “bear-butterfly” for the combination of power and delicacy shown in his playing at the 1970 International Chopin Competition.

Ohlssohn will have ample opportunity to demonstrate both sides of his pianist personality when he performs Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Spokane Symphony Friday at the Opera House.

The concert marks the beginning of the symphony’s 1996-97 season. Along with the Brahms concerto, music director Fabio Mechetti will lead the orchestra in two American works, Samuel Barber’s Overture to “The School for Scandal” and Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story.”

Ohlssohn was born in White Plains, N.Y., and began studying the piano when he was 8. He studied at the Juilliard School with Sascha Gorodnitzki and Rosina Lhevinne and privately with other teachers, including Claudio Arrau and Irma Wolpe. By the time of his New York recital debut in 1970, Ohlssohn had already won two major international competitions, the Busoni Prize in Switzerland and the Montreal Competition in Canada.

In 1970, Ohlssohn became the first American to win the International Chopin Competition. For his distinguished career achievements, Ohlssohn was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize in 1994.

The pianist is well known in the Spokane region. He first performed with the Spokane Symphony in 1972, and he has performed solo recitals and given master classes at Eastern Washington University and North Idaho College.

Few pianists can equal Ohlssohn’s breadth of repertoire. He performs the gamut of piano literature, ranging from the classics of Haydn and Mozart, through romantics from Chopin to Rachmaninoff, to say nothing of early and late-20th-century masters such as Bartok and Wourinen. His highly praised recording projects include complete works of Chopin, the complete piano sonatas of Weber, a set of Haydn’s “London” Sonatas and a Beethoven sonata disc.

Ohlssohn and Mechetti have chosen one of the most challenging concertos to open the symphony’s 51st season. Brahms wrote to a friend after finishing the work 1871, “I have just composed a tiny, tiny piano concerto with a little wisp of a scherzo.”

The “tiny, tiny concerto” takes about 50 minutes to play, and its “wisp of a scherzo” contains some technical difficulties equal to, and sometimes surpassing, those in the more obviously virtuosic concertos of Liszt and Tchaikovsky.

As companions to Brahms’ concerto, Mechetti has programmed Barber’s Overture to “The School for Scandal” and Bernstein’s suite of Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story.” Barber’s overture was one of his earliest successes, written when the composer was only 21. The overture, though inspired by the composer having read Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s famous comedy, was never intended to be played for any performance of the play.

Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances resulted from the composer’s eagerness to have some of the music of his most popular work, “West Side Story,” in a full symphonic orchestration. Bernstein asked Sid Ramin and Stephen Sondheim, who assisted in the orchestration of the original 1957 musical, to prepare an expanded version of some of the numbers. The result has become a symphonic favorite on its own.

Friday’s concert will give the symphony’s audience its first chance to buy the Spokane Symphony’s first CD, a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony recorded at the end of last season in a day-long session between two live performances of the work.

Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto is one of the two major Brahms compositions on the symphony’s schedule this season (the other being the German Requiem in April), a season that will commemorate the centennial of Brahms’ death. Among the other events to look forward to this symphony season are the appearance of Fabio Mechetti’s father, Marcello - a well-known opera conductor in South America - in a program of opera overtures and choruses in November; a Valentine’s Day program with the trumpet virtuoso and composer Allen Vizzutti; and the season-ending performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3.

Kendall Feeney, pianist and artistic director of Zephyr, will discuss the music on Friday’s program at 7 p.m. in the Opera House auditorium.

, DataTimesILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CONCERT The Spokane Symphony, with piano soloist Garrick Ohlssohn, will perform at 8 p.m. Friday at the Spokane Opera House. Tickets are $13 to $28, available at the symphony ticket office (624-1200), G&B Select-a-Seat outlets or call (800) 325-SEAT.