Even the most formal and over-determined classical works can still open space for contemporary creative practice. Tonight’s performance of Beethoven’s early and heroic scores revealed how these pieces continue to invite fresh dialogue, risk, and genuine collaboration between conductor, soloist and orchestra.
This multi-year project has seen the Sydney Symphony Orchestra present the complete cycle of Beethoven’s five piano concertos with Spanish pianist Javier Perianes, conducted primarily by Chief Conductor Simone Young. It began in August 2022 with Piano Concerto No. 3 and has unfolded as a careful, multi-season collaboration in which Perianes has returned annually to work through the set with insight and dedication. Tonight’s program — Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1, Piano Concerto No. 2 and Piano Concerto No. 5, the Emperor — brings the cycle to its completion.
Viewed through the lens of the interpretative partnership between Simone Young and Javier Perianes, the performance took on particular clarity. Young has described Perianes as a musician who “thinks in phrases,” finding meaning in the grammar of the music rather than treating the notes as isolated events. She has spoken of an intuitive connection that was present from their first collaboration, and of a shared sense that there is no definitive performance of these works — only successive readings in which something new in the music is continually revealed.
The program was shaped by Perianes and Young together as a way of tracing how Beethoven’s style develops as the works grow longer and more expansive, while also illuminating the evolving relationship between soloist and orchestra. Perianes is notably attentive to what the other players are doing, his own articulation emerges not only from deep knowledge of the score but from active listening in the moment. Watching him, one sensed a musician keenly aware of his own process and the possibilities it continually opens, and who clearly takes pleasure in the connection with the SSO musicians and with Young.
In Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 Simone Young conducted without a score, leading a smaller orchestra in a refined, elegant and well-proportioned account. The symphony opens with that celebrated slow introduction, teasing the ear with unexpected resolutions and a quiet sense of playfulness — a quality of harmonic wit that would later reappear, transformed and expanded, in the Emperor Concerto. The second movement was aristocratic in poise, while the Menuetto and final brought a light, joyful energy deliberately free of later heroic weight. One saw Young in full authority, setting the parameters for the musicians and shaping the sound with quiet command. Already in this symphony the different sections of the orchestra — winds, horns, upper and lower strings — begin to push toward greater independence.
The Piano Concerto No. 2, an earlier work, presented a more blended, integrated sound and conversational orchestration, with the orchestral sections supporting rather than competing with the piano. The first movement unfolded with poised classical clarity, its themes passed easily between piano and orchestra, Perianes shaping the solo line with elegance and quiet sparkle rather than overt display. Even when not playing, he remained oriented toward the orchestra, listening intently. In the Adagio the piano carried a beautiful, expansive melody that allowed generous space for phrasing, rubato and colour, while the orchestra provided a soft, supportive cushion. The finale, a bright and witty rondo, lived on quick exchanges — sparkling runs, playful dotted rhythms and hunting-calls of the horns. Throughout there was frequent eye contact between Young and Perianes and a constant sense of classical conversation rather than solo display.
The real gear-change into power and projection arrived with the Emperor Concerto after the interval. The orchestra was larger, with more basses, and the work itself different in scale and balance. Beethoven places the architectural weight firmly in the first movement, where the piano is assertive from the opening bars, cutting across the orchestral chords with bold, written-out flourishes. By the slow movement the relationship shifts: the piano no longer breaks away but listens, interlocks, and moves over and under the orchestral texture. The finale is a big, exuberant rondo, a joyful and slightly rustic dance that Perianes clearly relished. After the monumental first movement and hushed Adagio, it brought a strong sense of release and celebration.
The audience was clearly delighted when Young and Perianes returned to the stage together for one of Beethoven’s marches — a perfect cherry on top to mark the completion of their five-year project performing the complete cycle of the piano concertos.
Photos by Ken Leanfore.
Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Opera House, 25 July 2026
