The one word that occurred to me over and over during Garrick Ohlsson’s piano recital tonight was control.

His technique is so ingrained and his terraced dynamics so nuanced, right across the spectrum from very soft to very loud, he retains his control throughout a long and taxing work like Franz Liszt’s 30-minute Piano Sonata.

Appearing through the auspices of Musica Viva Australia, Ohlsson is a dominating presence: American, a prolific recording artist (having recorded among other things the complete works of Chopin), and 75 years-old. A lifetime of experience and musical insight produced the concert we heard tonight.

Garrick Ohlsson on stage at the Brisbane Conservatorium for Musica Viva Australia, in South Bank, Brisbane. Photo © Lyndon Mechielsen

Ohlsson’s quality was clear from the outset in his performance of Schubert’s Impromptu in C Minor. In this short work, basically a series of repetitions of a simple march theme, the pianist teased out a variety of emotional shades: plaintive, mysterious, threatening, lyrical, and more.

This also applied on a larger scale to the Liszt Sonata. From portentous dramatic statements to delicate, decorative figuration, every extreme played into the work’s overall arc. It was...