Spain’s Javier Perianes is a fairly frequent visitor to Australia. A year ago, he played Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 5 with the SSO, and later this week he will perform Beethoven’s Second and Fifth Piano Concertos with Simone Young conducting.

On this occasion, he joined that small clique of pianists to give a solo recital in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.

Perianes’s fascinating program was divided in the first half between early pieces by Manuel de Falla and music by Frédéric Chopin. The parallels were deliberate, illustrating the strong influence Chopin had on the young composer.

Javier Perianes and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (2025). Photo © Ken Leanfore

Written at the age of 20, the first selection was Falla’s Notturno, which was openly Chopinesque in its melodic lyricism and gently arpeggiated accompaniment. Perianes played it with exquisite refinement.

This was paired with Chopin’s Nocturne in D flat major, Op. 27, No. 2, composed 60 years earlier. Other than a touch of modal “Spanish” harmony in the Falla, they could have been written in the same year by the same composer.

These were followed by mazurkas from both composers before each went his separate way, with Falla’s Serenata andaluza and Canción (both 1900) alternating with Chopin’s Waltz, Op. 34, No. 2, and Berceuse, Op. 57. Throughout, Perianes sought out lyricism above all else; his Berceuse was delicacy personified. Although there was not a great deal of contrast in this half of the program, the pianist’s warm textures and unforced expressivity were a constant joy. Perianes’s fastidious dynamic shading between piano and pianississimo is truly remarkable.

After the interval, he launched into Falla’s Four Spanish Pieces (1906–09), a work from the composer’s nationalist maturity. Here, more dynamic contrast was possible – the gusto of the opening chords in “Aragonesa” reminded us that Spain had won the World Cup just hours before.

These pieces also contain lyrical and tender episodes, which Perianes made the most of.

Javier Perianes and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (2025). Photo © Ken Leanfore

To close, he gave us four movements from Isaac Albéniz’s Iberia, a piano suite from the same period as the Falla pieces (1905–09) and the composer’s late masterpiece. If early Falla references Chopin, late Albéniz references Liszt: Iberia is technically beyond all but the very finest virtuosos.

The opening Evocación suited Perianes perfectly, with its perfumed textures and languorous themes. He took El Polo and Almería more slowly than I have heard them, with none of Alicia de Larrocha’s zippy edge, for example.

Triana, the most complex of the four, was the only time I felt Perianes was occasionally stretched; admittedly, the piece is a technical nightmare. Nevertheless, he found beauty in it.

An attentive and loudly enthusiastic audience brought the pianist back for two encores. As piano recitals go, this was a World Cup-level winner.

Javier Perianes plays Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (Simone Young conducting) 22-25 July, in the Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House.