The anniversary celebration of the birth year or death year of great composers is a questionable enterprise. Two years ago, some adventurous music presenters took the bold step to honor the centennial of French composer Olivier Messiaen’s birth with performances of his less familiar works, a great service to adventurous music lovers. In New York City, for example, the organist of St. Thomas Church played all of the composer’s works for organ in a daunting series of six weekly recitals.

On the other hand, did we really need all of the hoopla about the 250th anniversary of the death of J. S. Bach in 2000, especially since recording companies (remember those?) and performers had gone all out to fete the 300th aniversary of Bach’s birth in 1985? Bach is not a composer who has languished in obscurity, at least in our lifetime.

In 2010, many organizations will observe the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frédéric Chopin. The La Jolla Music Society—in concert with the San Diego Symphony, the San Diego Youth Symphony and the California Ballet—will present Chopin’s entire musical catalogue over two years, a project that was launched with Garrick Ohlsson’s piano recital Friday (January 15) at La Jolla’s Sherwood Auditorium.

While it is true that Chopin is a staple of pianists the world over and Chopin piano competitions seem to spring up like crab grass in a rainy spring, a respectable case can be made for this project. Over the years, certain Chopin pieces have been programmed over and over, to the exclusion of many others of equal or even greater interest. Any music lover could come up with a list of Chopin’s greatest hits, e.g. the D-flat Major “Rainbow” Prelude, the “Military” Polonaise, the E-flat Major Nocturne, the First Ballade, the “Black Keys” and E Major Etudes, to name those that immediately come to mind. And Chopin’s chamber music is rarely heard.

So this project will give audiences a unique chance to evaluate a composer they think they know well, but actually only know in small part. We shall see what that verdict will be two years from now.

Winning Warsaw’s 1970 Chopín International Piano Competition early in his career (and the first American musician to accomplish that feat) established his credentials as a Chopin interpreter. But that is no guarantee that he is always on the money.

His hushed, almost reverent opening account of the B-flat Minor Nocturne, Op. 9, No. 3, that caressed its themes with supple phrasing and just enough rubato heightened audience expectations for a spectacular Chopin evening. The promise was realized in the first four Etudes of Opus 10, where Ohlsson’s muscular technique subdued every challenge with finesse, especially in the brilliant half of the E Major Etude where velocity and clarity were wedded in uncommon unity.

The dark, ominous left-hand theme of the C Minor Polonaise, Op. 40, No. 2, glowered in the piano’s depths until Ohlsson raised it to mesh gloriously with the ringing chords in the right hand, moving gracefully from one mood to the next, a winning Chopin trait that not all of the great Romantic piano composers mastered. In the most familiar movement of the Piano Sonata No. 2, the oft-quoted funeral march, Ohlsson infused the march with restrained dignity and gave the contrasting major theme a graceful, reflective warmth. His bravura fluidity of the Sonata’s concluding Presto was just short of breath-taking.

But his clipped, almost brusque reading of the A Major Poloniase (“Military”) rushed by impatiently. Granted this chestnut has been flayed by far too many aspiring piano students, but Ohlsson appeared overly eager to dispense with it.

I also sensed a certain impatience with his three Mazurkas of Opus 7, although the lmore sophisticated Mazurka in C-sharp Minor, Op. 34, No. 4, he filled with elegant turns and playful intensity.

He gave us an endearing rarity, Chopin’s “Variations brillantes on ‘Je vends des scapulaires’ from Hérold’s ‘Ludovic’,” Op. 12, a charming and quite superficial set of thematic decorations and manipulations, that virtuoso’s magic trick that was all the rage in Paris during the 1830s. Chopin had heard Louis Hérold’s aria at the Paris Opéra and found it charming enough to turn into a variation cycle. Ohlsson took it seriously, giving respectful attention to structural details and melodic contour. We now better understand how Chopin could capitalize on a musical fad, turn it to his advantage, but then wean his followers from such easy listening to more serious fare. It is also possible that this variation technique may have been typical of Chopin’s late-evening improvisations, for which he was celebrated in the salons of Paris society.

Ohlsson ended his Chopin survey with the Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat Minor, Op 31, a dramatic tour de force that brought forth his greatest virtues, especially the ability to change instantly from explosive declamation to mysterious and tender incantations.

With some sense of relief after non-stop Chopin, he played the final movement of a Mozart Sonata (C Major, K. 330) as an encore.

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