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Fastest Way From Chopin to Brahms? A Getaway Car

By DANIEL J. WAKIN
New York Times
Published: October 16, 2004

If there were a piano Olympics, the pianist Garrick Ohlsson would enter the biathlon - biathlon as in concerto playing and racing around New Jersey.
Mr. Ohlsson has long been scheduled to play Chopin's First Piano Concerto at Montclair State University with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra on Friday. But because of a mix-up, he was later booked to play Brahms's First Piano Concerto at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra the same night.
A satisfactory substitute in the Brahms - one of the more challenging works in the repertory - could not be found. What to do?
Orpheus and the Montclair presenters agreed to start their concert a half-hour earlier and move the Chopin from the second half of the program to the start; the Gewandhaus and the Newark presenters agreed to move the Brahms to the second half. Mr. Ohlsson expects to be done in Montclair by 8:15, he said recently, with about an hour before the baton drop in Newark, 12 miles away.
"The getaway car will be waiting with the engine running and will drive me up to Newark," he said. "I'll get to Newark, have a glass of water and take a deep breath." No need even to change clothes.
He said he did not see the performances as a particular feat but was mainly worried about keeping his concentration during the trip in between. At 56, he has played each concerto more than 100 times, and the musical energy needed for one concerto equals that for half a solo recital, he said.
Mr. Ohlsson added that he would go into the game a crowd favorite for making the effort. "Once I get to the piano bench in Newark, I'm a hero even if I don't play my best - of course, I'll try my best."
The mix-up was the result of a misplaced e-mail message to Columbia Artists Management in New York, which represents the Leipzig orchestra. Columbia Artists said it had lost the message from Mr. Ohlsson's European management warning of the conflict.
Mr. Ohlsson is by no means the first musician to pull a double shift. Just last April, Louis Lortie substituted for Martha Argerich in Schumann's Piano Concerto with the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall, then raced across Central Park to play a solo recital at the Metropolitan Museum. He, too, had a getaway limousine, but he said at the time that a cab would have been cheaper.