Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Garrick Ohlsson on pianos

If I have posted this here before, my apologies. I cannot remember if I did and I just relistened to them myself.

Even if I did, this bears another listen - or a listen and some input from newer members. High End Piano Guy's blog is tremendous. Read through it. Believe me it is worth the time.

This post is a short series of several interviews with Garrick Ohlsson on pianos, performing, and just his feelings about music in general. It is a great insight.

Garrick Ohlsson Interviews

Anyway, I hope many take the time to listen to them. They aren't long and I would love your comments.

I'll give you a comment:

High End Piano Guy is a pretentious twit.

I ought to know...

Full Disclosure = BoseEric IS High End Piano Guy.

Nice job Eric, you pretentious twit.

I have read most of the articles on Bosie Eric' blog. It's a perfect blog for many PW members. Not all of us are lucky enough to own a performance grade piano(especially the very costly ones in the top group), but many PW members are very interested in those pianos and they seem to get a lot of discussion on PW despite not being actually owned by that many members. It's quite amazing how much discussion there is at PW about pianos in the 75K and over range.

So thanks, Eric, for your fascinating and informative blog.

Great discussions...

Of course, I would like to have heard the pianos too.

Rick

Fantastic interview! Rich, thanks for posting it, and Eric, thanks for doing it!

Hi Rich,
Yes, you did post this interview here a few years ago. It is a very insightful discussion and I like his open-minded attitude in not endorsing one excellent piano brand to the exclusion of the others.
It is a refreshing approach from a highly distinguished artist who certainly can speak with experience about the instrument.

Thank you for re-posting this invaluable snippet for all piano enthusiasts,

kind regards,

Robert.

If someone will give me a nice Steinway, Mason, Bosendorfer, and Fazioli I will be willing to post my comparison based on how well they are suited Jerry Lee Lewis' Whole Lot of Shakin Goin On.

The most important sentence [in my mind..] that was said was this:

"Chopin is more important than the piano"

Couldn't agree more....

Norbert

Ditto!
Kind regards,
Robert.

Now everyone is going to refer to him as a pretentious twit.

In all seriousness, thanks Rich for the interesting series of

topics...

allthumbs

Great interview. Ohlsson brings up good ideas about the need to let pianos season in their venues rather than bringing them in for a concert, then shipping them back out. I am surprised that all the great halls don't do what the Boston does. Does anyone know which ones do?

I found it interesting - though I was hoping he was going to dish some dirt about the Steinway Artists arrangements and the effect that has on the diversity of performance pianos. He's obviously decided to sidestep that topic from now on.

ando,

Not from now on, but maybe for recorded posterity. He has been there and done that and it is all on record in the newspapers of the time. Garrick is so much more than that subject. It was ugly for the company involved, but it is over.

Incidentally, a few years ago, one day before a concert here in Philadelphia, we got a call from Ohlsson's people. He was playing here in Philly and preferred not to play on "the house" S&S. They wondered if we had a well prepared Bosie Imperial available, which we did.

BUT, instead of charging the usual $2500.00 to $3000.00 for an emergency Imperial rental, prep., and same night pick up, we asked if after his concert he could attend a reception in his honor that we put on in a hotel suite across the street from where he played. He said - keep it to 2 hours and less than 40 people and he would do it.

The evening was wonderful. I got to spend some quality time with Garrick and chatted about a variety of subjects - music, piano, opera (I am a singer). When the reception began, the Q&A session all centered around the subject you are reffering to and Mr. Ohlsson answered very frankly, but added that today, he is simply a fan of great pianos, and he played on one that evening. He got a wonderful round of applause.

At the end of the reception he signed some headshots that he had with him and gave me two - one for our store and one for me personally. This is what he signed for me:



It says - To Rich,
I wish I could sing like you.

To be clear, he has never heard me sing a note. He was just being nice guy and giving me something cool to hang over my desk. That is where it proudly hangs.

Hi Rich, I can certainly understand how this issue may have become very tired in your part of the world. In Australia it didn't get any coverage here at all. I've only just recently heard about it through clicking on online newspaper articles. So I'm sorry if I raised something that is irritating to you. I wasn't aware that it had become so notorious/tedious for you folks.

For what it's worth, I am full of admiration for Garrick's integrity in the way he handled that whole issue. That was the main reason I was interested to hear his comments on it. I also think it's highly relevant to the discussion about pianos in specific venues. But I'm happy to leave that hornet's nest alone.

Nice personal story about Garrick, by the way. I've heard such great testimonials about you and your store, if I'm ever in your neck of the woods, I'm definitely going to pay Cunningham's a visit.

ando,

I am not tired of it personally, but I think Garrick might be. That is what I was saying in my earlier post.

I think S&S acted horribly and their tactic in this case backfired. Frankly, instead of 1 review that Mr. Ohlsson expected, the debacle wound up getting multiple reviews and articles written on it, many of which are still available online if you google a little.

This entire situation probably helped Garrick's career and certainly put the name Bosendorfer into heads that had never considered it before.

The shame of it is that this type of behavior has not stopped and may have actually escalated since then.

My 2 cents,

Garrick Ohlssohn acted badly. It may have been unthinking, but he should not have agreed to the terms of the endorsement in the first place. Too many artists sign on to these deals without a genuine commitment to the product. They want the benefits without the responsibility.

I wonder what clout the term ´´Steinway Artist´´ has outside USA. Pierre-Laurent Aimard, a SA, played a high-profile concert in London not long ago on the Yamaha CFX, which was broadcast live by the BBC on their classical radio station Radio 3 (whose announcer mentioned that in case listeners thought the piano didn´t sound like a Steinway, indeed the piano used was a ´new model by Yamaha´).

And Aimard took the starring role in what amounted to a Steinway promotional DVD just before that, in which he carefully chose the Steinway D he wanted for his recording of Bach´s The Art of Fugue. And the subsequent recording of the same works he played in that concert was on Steinway...

BDB,

Please remember - there was no agreement. I won't go into the details now, but if you need me to I can.

Google Garrick Ohlsson Steinway and read the articles. He was just a young artist who liked Bosies and said so. He was not a Steinway artist.

The incident in question took place over 30 years ago. The piano world was a different place then.