Ohlsson to Conclude his SFP Brahms Cycle

Garrick Ohlsson (photograph by Dario Acosta, courtesy of San Francisco Performances)

Last season San Francisco Performances presented a pair of recitals by pianist Garrick Ohlsson devoted entirely to the music of Johannes Brahms. Rather than organize his selections chronologically, Ohlsson used each of these recitals to focus on Brahms’ changing perspectives, contrasting the shorter pieces, many of which he wrote near the end of his life, with the longer-scale sonatas and variations of his youth. This season Ohlsson will complete his project with two more recitals taking the same approach to the contrasts in his changes of style.

The short-form compositions in the first program will be the Opus 79 set of two rhapsodies and the seven fantasias collected in Opus 116. The variations will be those in the second book of the Opus 35 set of variations on Niccolò Paganini’s 24th caprice for solo violin in A minor. The program will conclude with the Opus 5 (third) piano sonata in F minor.

The second program will also couple a set of variations with a sonata to represent Brahms’ more extended compositions. The variations will be those in the Opus 9 collection based on a theme by Robert Schumann in the key of F-sharp minor. The sonata will be the Opus 1 (first) in C major. The short pieces will be the Opus 4 scherzo in E-flat minor, the Opus 39 collection of sixteen short waltzes, and the final collection of short pieces, Opus 119.

Both of these programs will take place at Herbst Theatre on a Tuesday evening beginning at 7:30 p.m., February 4 for the first recital and March 31 for the second. The entrance to Herbst Theatre is on the ground floor of the Veterans Building, located on the southwest corner of Van Ness Avenue and McAllister Street. Tickets are on sale for $85 for premium seating in the Orchestra and the front of the Dress Circle, $65 for the remainder of the Orchestra, the remainder of the center Dress Circle, and the Boxes, and $45 for remaining seats in the Dress Circle and the Balcony. Tickets are being sold only for individual recitals. However, there is a single event page for the pair of recitals, which brings up a menu from which the individual dates may be selected.