One of the most profoundly thrilling and beautiful musical experiences of this reviewer’s life.

Perth Concert Hall
August 28, 2015

My friend and colleague Neville Cohn, music critic for The West Australian, emailed me this morning to say, “In more than three decades of listening to the WASO, last night’s performance was surely one of the most memorable – and for the very best of reasons.” I would go one further and say that listening to Saturday night’s performances of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No 2 in B flat, Op. 83 and Symphony No 4 in E minor, Op. 98 by pianist Garrick Ohlsson, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and Principal Conductor Asher Fisch was one of the most profoundly thrilling and beautiful musical experiences of my life. And I have no doubt many others privileged enough to have been among the capacity audience would agree.

Where to begin? Why not with neither of those two magnificent works but with pianist Garrick Ohlsson’s encore? Ohlsson became, in 1970, the first American to win first prize in the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition, and his reputation is in part built on his highly individual yet thoroughly idiomatic interpretations of that composer’s music....