Tonight’s concert was the first of two featuring the six finalists in this year’s competition, each playing a concerto written after 1800, chosen from a prescribed list.

Accompanied by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Northey, we heard Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor played by Yungyung Guo, Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in F sharp played by Uladzislau Khandohi, and Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor played by Yuanfan Yang.

As in the pre-1800 section, there was no question of the extraordinary level of keyboard facility attained by these dedicated young virtuosi. There was also no question that the music of the Romantic and post-Romantic style speaks to them most fully.

Yungyung Guo. Photo © Jay Patel

Schumann’s A Minor Piano Concerto is a marvellous work, full of sweet, fleeting melodic moments and rippling figuration in the outer movements that sounds so natural it belies the technical challenges posed. I thought on Wednesday, in her fine performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27, that Guo was over-emoting and trying to squeeze romantic feeling out of what is basically a piece from the Classical period (albeit a beautiful...