There's a noticeable breadth of sound and depth of expressiveness to Garrick Ohlsson's playing that has always impressed me. I clearly remember, back in the early 1970s, stepping into my favorite record shop and buying, on spec because of a sticker on the cover stating that he had just won the Chopin International Piano Competition, his recording of the complete Chopin Nocturnes on what was then the 'Angel Records' label (remember Angel Records?). A recording that is still available today as a reissue on Warner Classics, following EMI's many permutations. I was immediately astonished by Ohlsson's technique, power and nuanced expression. And this expansiveness of touch at the keyboard certainly works well with the late piano works of Johannes Brahms.

These late pieces represent Brahms at his most eloquent, while at the same time at his most vulnerable, exposing his deepest and most personal thoughts. Take for example the final Intermezzo from the Op. 118 set. Something as evanescent and yet profound would be hard to find in all of piano literature. I especially like the way Garrick Ohlsson coalesces the grace of youth with the ponderous nature of old age in the three Op. 117 Intermezzi, a set of works if there ever was one that seems to aim to capture and reproduce the essence of Robert Schumann. And the famous Intermezzo No. 2 in A major from the Op. 118, which seems to contemplate all moods from serenity to anxiety, here sounds as if tailored for Ohlsson's hands and deeply expressive conceptualization. As an added filler, if you can call it that, the inclusion of the Scherzo in E flat minor Op. 4, written 40 years earlier, not only demonstrates the impetuousness of Brahms as a young man, but further helps demarcate the extent to which the music of Johannes Brahms evolved over that period of time, from an eager firebrand to a wise old owl.

I for one can't think of a better new recording to kick off the new year.