Classical Source editor Colin Anderson has published a rave review on his Colin’s Column site in his “Outstanding” Category for the Garrick Ohlsson, Sir Donald Runnicles, and Grand Teton Music Festival’s Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos recording:
“I started at the very end, with Beethoven’s Prometheus Overture, to get a feel for recorded sound and the orchestral playing: both excellent, Sir Donald setting a dignified opening against a bustling allegro, an appreciable entrée to Garrick Ohlsson and the five Piano Concertos, beginning (for me) with the ‘Emperor’, a majestic account with considered conducting, a lively orchestra, and fastidious solos from Ohlsson, an architect, a lyricist, and a dynamic purveyor of the notes, the sort of address that takes the listener into the music without performer artifice or intervention for its own sake; thus No.5 is essayed with character, a trust in – and a focus on – the music, and vivid communication, the well-balanced recording capturing enthusiastic camaraderie between the musicians and the resulting spontaneous music-making, the slow movement being especially sublime, and the Finale an exhilarating and rhythmically vital ride, nicely modulated along the way.…
Throughout, not a note is out of place during these invigorating and searching readings – a collection of performances that revive the appetite for these works while denying any notion that they can ever be taken for granted.”
—Colin Anderson, Colin’s Column