Garrick Olsen: A Bit of a Flourish

By the time No. 9 semifinalist Garrick Olsen had adjusted his seat and started to play, your trusty blogger had already heard eight iterations of one or another Prelude and Fugue from J.S. Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II" and was starting to wonder if any well-meaning clavier had ever gotten frustrated enough to take a hatchet to the offending instrument. Happily for the Conservatory's piano, Olsen refrained from this course of action; indeed, his Prelude and Fugue was more hesitant than well-tempered. At times, he would push the volume up a little bit and then draw back just as suddenly.

In the first movement of Franz Joseph Haydn's Sonata No. 52, he got a bit more imaginative. Although he eschewed the edged weaponry, Olsen was sharp and quick during the sonata's numerous one-handed passages, flourishing his left hand and ably contrasting the faster, more demanding passages with slower, passive parts. It almost looked like he was holding an invisible baton during the Chopin Nocturne No. 13; sometimes when the left hand was temporarily on break, he seemed almost to be conducting the sound. Whether Olsen was playing to an orchestra or bouncing up and down in his seat with excitement, one thing was clear: the kid loves to play.

You could see this in the final two pieces as well, namely Alexander Schriabin's Sonata No. 9 and Marc-André Hamelin's 12 Etudes in All the Minor Keys. Olsen described both pieces as riffing off the theme of evil as a seductive force, showing up musically with dark and brooding "evil" themes mixed with a kind of sickly sweet theme. Although he appeared somewhat nervous when talking to the crowd, Olsen warmed up when going into the detailed (and creepy) backstory of the No. 8 etude, "Erlkönig", and when describing the over-the-top playfulness of the No. 6 etude. Olsen really made me see the father and son on the horse, and gave the audience a distinctly unsettling glimpse of the monstrous Erlkönig. After that, hearing the No. 6 etude--which, as Olsen warned, was full of comically over-the-top overhand crosses and gaps--was just awesome. There were so many overhand crosses, it honestly looked like a giant game of patty-cake; the piece was full of laughter, both in the notes and elicited from the audience.