On 28 February ABC Classic announced the release of the complete piano concertos by Beethoven, performed by Australian-British pianist Jayson Gillham, with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Carter. This cycle – the first in twenty years recorded with an Australian pianist, conductor and orchestra – is a major contribution to the ongoing celebrations of Beethoven’s 250th anniversary.
Recorded in five concerts performed over 10 days at Adelaide’s Elder Hall in June 2019, these recordings capture a soloist, conductor and orchestra totally in synch with each other, with a shared vision for the sound world and rhetoric of these mighty works. Reviews of the concert remarked at the “chamber music-like intimacy” between the performers, with a “sense of balance and support… often never heard before within these well-known and much listened to works” (Limelight).