Sydney Opera House, Concert Hall
September 21, 2016

How long is it since we’ve had what was once considered a standard concert with an overture, a concerto and an after-interval symphony? What a joy it was to experience.

The evening began with a taut reading of Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, which augured well for the rest of the concert. It was wonderful to see Nelson Freire, a connoisseur’s artist if ever there were one, in Schumann’s delightful Piano Concerto, once a stalwart of the concert repertoire, now rarely encountered. (Why?) Freire has been shamefully neglected until relatively recently by recording companies and he brought a mixture of charm, wit and spontaneity to this charming work. His phasing was natural and elegant and the central Intermezzo (Schumann dispensed with a conventional slow movememt) was an intimate dialogue, neither precious nor coy.

Nelson Freire, photo © Daniela Testa

The longest work on the programme was Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony. Here, the SSO has form: Edo de Waart, so often capable of po-faced accounts in other repertoire, was a great interpeter of this work, (they toured the US with it). For all its kaleidoscopic emotions and heart-tugging melodies,...