And so we arrive at the final concert in a series during which Czech pianist Lukáš Vondráček and the West Australian Symphony Orchestra under Principal Conductor Asher Fisch have offered us a magisterial view of Beethoven’s five piano concertos.

As with the previous two concerts, The Maverick and The Master, an earlier work is juxtaposed with one from later in Beethoven’s career. In this case, his Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21, premiered in Vienna in 1800; and his Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73 Emperor, premiered in 1811.

Before that, however, another overture, this time the Overture in C major, Op. 115, Namensfeier, which even Beethoven himself considered a minor work and which we may, while acknowledging the excellence of the performance on this occasion, happily move on from.

Asher Fisch conducts the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven: The Emperor. Photo © Court McAllister

Fisch and WASO understand the First Symphony is part Classical, part Romantic but all Beethoven. Thus, in the first movement, the ambiguities and tensions generated by the composer’s subversion of Classical...