This second concert in WASO’s journey through Beethoven’s five piano concertos with soloist Lukáš Vondráček opened with the Egmont overture before presenting concertos Nos. 2 and 4.

In doing so, it provides not only an opportunity to compare Beethoven as talented imitator and as original creator but to hear Vondráček, conductor Asher Fisch and WASO bridging the two extremes as recreative artists in their own right.

Beethoven: The Master. Lukáš Vondráček and WASO. Photo © Rebecca Mansell

Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major Op. 19 (premiered 1795) is actually his first piano concerto and the result of his assiduous study of Mozart’s concertos and his desire to showcase his considerable virtuosity to a Viennese audience.

By contrast, his Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major Op. 58, written some 10 years later, is most notable for its extraordinary innovation, introspection and artfully deployed nobility of expression.

Following a rousing performance by Fisch and WASO of the composer’s overture to Goethe’s verse drama Egmont, Vondráček steps on stage to much applause for a different kind of drama, one imbued with wit, charm and sparkling volubility.

Though not always. Yes, the lightness and grace of the outer Allegro con brio and Rondo movements allow soloist, conductor and orchestra alike to disport themselves amidst a transparent, classical orchestration and cheeky soloistic exuberance. But in the first movement’s complex cadenza, written much later than the rest of the concerto, and in the gorgeously operatic Adagio, Vondráček transports us with his daring dynamic contrasts and lyrical phrasing to a different plane entirely.

Which prepares us quite naturally for the Piano Concerto No. 4. If there were any doubt that Vondráček was a poet of the keyboard, those doubts were here dispelled.

Beethoven: The Master. Lukáš Vondráček and WASO. Photo © Rebecca Mansell

Orchestrally speaking, the opening Allegro moderato returns us to Mozartean textures. Compositionally, anything but, and as Vondráček and Fisch steer a course through a veiled quasi fantasia soundscape of gossamer expostulations and surprising modulations, we are subdued, we capitulate, in the face of genius.

But wait, there’s more. Belying its brevity and simplicity, the following dialogue between piano and strings, its troubled convocation pierced momently by that devil’s trill, confounds us with its abundant mystery. Vondráček seems rapt, an anguished rhapsode as he replies to the beautifully sculpted string utterances.

Beethoven: The Master. Lukáš Vondráček and WASO. Photo © Rebecca Mansell

Finally, release, with the full orchestra, including for the first time in the concerto the trumpets and drums, joining Fisch and Vondráček for a spirited Rondo in which the protagonists spar in good-natured conflict towards a magical coda and blazing conclusion.

Vondráček’s encore, this time Chopin’s exquisite Nocturne No. 20 in C-sharp minor, Op. posth., could not have been better chosen. Or indeed, better played.