Víkingur Ólafsson, piano

Symphony Hall

FRI MAR 20 8PM

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In just four years, Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson has become a mainstay on our season, and a welcome presence in Boston.

Anything but routine, his programs are consistently brilliant and reliably unconventional. Ólafsson’s debut at Pickman Hall offered a thoughtfully curated and insightfully performed tour through the works of Mozart and his contemporaries. At Jordan Hall, he explored Bach’s landmark Goldberg Variations with striking clarity. And last season at Symphony Hall, he joined the dazzling, formidable Yuja Wang for a two-piano recital that bounded playfully across centuries and styles.

Now, Ólafsson returns to Symphony Hall for his solo debut on that grand stage. With the title, he draws our attention to Beethoven’s 30th piano sonata, Opus 109. On the way to his delicate, uniquely crystalline account of that sonata, Ólafsson treats us to a journey through works by Bach, and earlier sonatas by Beethoven and Schubert, all in the key of E major or E minor.

Eccentric? Maybe. Excellent, extraordinarily expressive, essential? Exactly.

“One of today’s most intelligently expressive pianists. ”
The New York Times

“★★★★★ Not only does Ólafsson offer exceptional variety in his articulation [of Beethoven's Opus 109] here, it’s also one of the most purely beautiful accounts on record. ...for those prepared to go along with him, Ólafsson opens up a transcendent vista on to a brave new world.”
THE GUARDIAN "Opus 109" Album review