Beethoven 5, Vol. 3 (Live)

American pianist Jonathan Biss’ project to marry each Beethoven piano concerto with a new work reaches its third volume. Here, the evergreen No. 2, chronologically the earliest of the five, preludes Timo Andres’ sparklingly inventive three-chapter concerto for piano and orchestra, a fantasy of dizzying downward plunges, winding chromaticism and exhilarating interplay. There’s a radiance to the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra’s playing from the opening bar, matching pound-for-pound Biss’ incredible sense for detail. Every phrase is considered, each note shown its rightful place, as if Biss has dismantled the work before lovingly cleaning and reassembling it. In the second movement, one of Beethoven’s most outwardly glowing and warm-hearted, orchestra and piano are in complete accord, steered by Biss’ incredible touch. The third movement’s impishness is never overdone, piano and orchestra exercising a deliciously restrained playfulness. Timo Andres’ The Blind Banister, which takes its title from a line from Schubertiana by the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, emerges from the final chord, almost umbilically. Its opening note appears to continue from where Beethoven left off, but Andres has other ideas, casting the listener into a shimmering, almost folk-like, Bartókian mist. Bubbling flutes join, strings wax and wane, the landscape shifts inexorably downwards. From there, piano and orchestra vie in a post-Romantic tussle. The chiming second movement “Ringing Weights” continues the downwards trajectory, its triple time adding a dancing lilt. Andres’ inventive orchestrations come to the fore in the “Coda”, its unexpectedly sudden ending clearly catching the exultant live audience off guard.