Garrick Ohlsson – recital
Don’t miss the piano recital of Garrick Ohlsson – Sunday 16 May. The concert will take place without an audience in the hall. You can watch the live broadcast of the concert as well as two dozen others on our website for free!
“I know and trust my Prague friends!”
“One of the great privileges of having a long and quite successful career is the possibility to revisit many old ‘friends’ in the repertory”, says Garrick Ohlsson, a regular guest at the Prague Spring Festival. The American pianist goes on to say: “This season I chose, for no special reason, to come back to the Prokofiev Op. 84, which I learned when I was 15, and the Scriabin 5th sonata, which I first played when I was 34. Both are favourites – the Prokofiev for its ripe melodic qualities and vast dramatic scope, and Scriabin for its intense ecstatic excitement.” This time, Ohlsson’s Prague Spring programme will be based on 20th-century piano sonatas. “Janacek’s Sonata I.X.1905 is magnificent, and I had never played it, so it’s new to me this year. Similarly, the Szymanowski #3 is recent in my life – he is a composer that fascinates me, coming, as he does, a little from the world of Chopin and Scriabin, but with other influences. All these works are wildly difficult, but so are Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Of course, the Szymanowski is quite a challenge to the listener (and pianist!) right at the beginning of the evening, but I know and trust my Prague friends!”
