Prefacing Beethoven’s middle-period masterpiece with two early works by Russian composers was always likely to pay aesthetic dividends. So it proved in this electrifying Friday night concert featuring WASO Chief Conductor Asher Fisch and Australian-based pianist Konstantin Shamray.

Written in 1869 and revised for a second and final time in 1880, Tchaikovsky’s fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet economically weaves together religiosity, violence and love in an intense musical commentary on Shakespeare’s play while offering up some of the composer’s most memorable melodies. Fisch’s account was symphonic in scope, human in scale, WASO responding with a collective sense of drama and precision to the baton.

Konstantin Shamray and the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. Photo supplied

Despite being another youthful work by a Russian composer, Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Flat, Op. 10 (1911) shares with the Tchaikovsky only its concentrated form; indeed, its single movement lasts barely 15 minutes. Otherwise, we are in a different world entirely, one where classical form is strained by spiky scintillation and ironic grandeur.

Shamray – a welcome regular visitor to WA – donned a deceptive nonchalance to take...