Olga Kern

Pianist Kern sometimes gets a bad rap as today’s exemplar of the unmusical Russian school of piano, a style of playing more concerned with physical brawn than tonal beauty. It just ain’t fair—even if she can give a piano a throttling it won’t forget—as her live performances here and on disc show.

We first heard Kern play live in 2001 in Indianapolis, shortly after she won the gold medal at the Van Cliburn Competition. Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto was at her mercy as she romped through that acerbic piece, and let fly a few raucous chords seemingly for the heck of it.

By 2005, she had matured and developed layers of nuance and shading that were audible even outdoors at Ravinia. That year, she brought Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, a work that allows for a certain amount of noisy abandon, but she didn’t surrender to it, instead giving the music an appealing grace. Yet in the truly loud moments, she pulled enough sound from the instrument that she could be heard over the Chicago Symphony. Without losing the power she had, it was clear she’d built up the rest of her playing, which also could be heard on a string of CDs on the harmonia mundi label.

This time, Kern brings Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, which almost comes with a built-in standing ovation. But with Kern at the piano bench, it’s a safe bet people will applaud more than the noise.—Marc Geelhoed