By Kevin McLaughlin, Cleveland Classical
Originally published in Cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Though we missed hearing pianist Igor Levit, who withdrew due to illness, it was a pleasure, as always, to welcome Garrick Ohlsson to Severance Music Center on Thursday, March 14. With Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra musicians as partners, the pianist strode onstage to render as refined and unfussy a performance of a Mozart Piano Concerto as one might hope to hear.
The Concerto No. 27 in B-flat, K. 595 — Mozart’s last — was composed in 1788, though not performed until March of 1791. Many keyboard players like to ascribe to Mozart the same pathos that attached itself to Schubert in his final years of life, but Ohlsson knows better. Mozart’s music rarely reflects immediate personal crises, and this particular concerto wasn’t designed for that anyway. (Photo by Yevhen Gulenko)