Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House
July 2, 2017

Burmese cats are often referred to as bricks wrapped in velvet and this analogy sprang to mind while watching the young Uzbek maestro Behzod Abduraimov open this concert with a fiery and masterful performance of Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata No 23.

^{Behzod Abduraimov. Photograph © Nissor Abdourazakov}

The 26-year-old had listeners leaning forward in their seats from the opening tragic downward motif to the brilliant flourish before the main tune is introduced. The crashing bass chords which interrupt the theme were dispatched with muscular pent-up energy, but these were beautifully contrasted by his handling of the nobler, more poetic passages.

The hymn-like variations of the middle movement showed Abduraimov’s magisterial grasp of structure and velvety beauty of line and there was an almost reckless momentum to the famous final movement, inspiration for which is said to have come to the composer while he was out walking with his friend and pupil Ferdinand Ries, during which Beethoven started “humming and sometimes howling … without singing any actual notes”.

The concert had originally been advertised to start with Liszt’s B minor sonata, and many people were perhaps disappointed when...