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Pianism and Poetry New York
Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall
10/10/2026 - October 11, 2026
Johannes Brahms: Piano Concerto Number 1 in D minor, opus 15; Richard Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus spoke Zarathustra)
Vikingur Ólafsson (Pianist), Kirill Petrenko (Conductor), Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
”I push Brahms away contemptuously. His music is a noisy, reverberating void. Only once or twice is Brahms expressive of an original emotion, and that emotion is the feeling of despondency, grief, melancholy….around in him by a sense of his own emotional impotence.”
Boston Musical Record, 1900
”’Zarathustra’ doesn’t speak. He shouts and whispers, mumbles and roars. He does everything but speak.”
Boston Daily Advertiser, 1897
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V. Ólafsson (©Deutsche Grammaphon)
The opening Brahms First Piano Concerto last night was not supposed to be played by Vikingur Ólafsson. The original pianist was the ailing Daniiel Trifanov–-and the difference would have been astonishing.
Mr. Trifanov could have set the Steinway on fire. Arms raised, notes pressed like a chainsaw, he would have had little use for conductor Petrenko, An exaggeration, of course, but there is no doubt Mr. Trifonov would have made us shake in our chairs.
Mr. Ólafsson had no such effect. His was the Thinking Listener’s Brahms. No less fiery in his opening, Mr. Ólafsson was poetic throughout. The opening led to thoughtful exposition, his large Icelandic hands easily changing those demonic trills into careful perpetual motions. The second subject was virtually a dream sequence, and the final folk-tune like a calm response to the opening.
Best of all, while hardly bodily demonstrative, when Mr. Ólafsson leaned back, arms extended, one could paste ohn a beard, and he would have resembled that famous painting of Brahms playing piano!
The Andante was equally thoughtful. I don’t know Brahms’ reaction to Chopin, but this was an orchestrated Chopin nocturne. Finally, Mr. Ólafsson let himself go. The finale showed an astonishing technique, an astonishing tempo, both ravishing and pellucid.
The revelation was partly that of thoughtful musician–but equally how Mr. Ólafsson drew attention to the composer himself. A rarity for young virtuosi these days,
K. Petrenko(©Antoine Saito/IMG)
Mr. Petrenko returned for a work that had no right to exist. One can picture the gallows in Till Eulenspiegel, one dons an aural raincoat during the Alpine torrents.
But a symphonic poem about philosophy? Nothing in music even approaches a philosophical idea.
Strauss’s music is four stages away from philosophy. First, a 3,500-year-old mystical concept . Then its development and explanation in a chimerical book, by Zoroaster, a self-endowed mystic religieuse.
Third came Nietzsche’s volume Also Sprach Zarathustra. I am hardly the one to criticize the great philosopher. But it is far more labyrinthine than the original ancient testaments.
And when Richard Strauss tried to refine those three idea-lives into a gigantic work which he condensed to “Man and the Will of Nature”, one must rebel against its verbal absurdity.
Actually, one can–or should–ignore both Strauss’ jabs at a philosophical idea and its execution. For the work does have its moments. And Mr. Petrenko, already an expert with the composer, gave a sympathetic (if hardly mind-blowing) reading last night.
That stunning sunrise excordium––which Stanley Kubrick downplayed into a monkey throwing a stick into the air–-showed the Berlin Philharmonic at its very best. The brass were crisp and stentorian, the organ pedal-points dark, Mr. Petrenko managed the dynamic changes with intense perfection. And, best of all, its familiarity hardly degrades its musical glory.
After that, one could thankfully disregard those silly titles of “Those in the Backwaters” or “Of Science and Learning”. Rather, one heard a mixture of dance and pondering. If nothing in Zarathustra can reach the grandeur of its opening, Strauss could initiate both tunes and climaxes. As well as a jolting silent anti-climax.,
Mr. Petrenko, with one of the world’s great orchestras literally at his fingertips, made not even a scintilla of idiosyncrasy. His was not a blazoning set of mood and fireworks. Instead with had a straightforward reading.
And by not cutting the skin to see the skull, one heard a wonderful mini-symphony played with secular devotion.
Harry Rolnick
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