When ABC Radio announced the theme for this year’s Classic 100 countdown in late May, I must admit that I felt very sceptical. An entire weekend’s countdown on just piano music? For the second time? I didn’t have a lot of confidence in the variety of music that would be featured on the countdown, much less in how they would structure an engaging concert around a single instrument while still including the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO). How foolish of me. The MSO, for the most part, managed to prove me wrong; putting on a show that uplifted the skill and craft behind the piano.

I assumed from the theme that the setlist would be too restricted, but it wound up being far more focused yet all-encompassing. While I did enjoy the performances from last year’s, the Feel Good theme ended up being a lot of trouble. Both the countdown and setlist were enjoyable, however the voting criteria felt far too vague. There was a sense even then that the setlist was a bit of a grab bag that, despite their best efforts, left a lot of votes on the cutting room floor. The singular instrument focus seems like it alleviated this concern, allowing the setlist to focus more on capturing the wide gamut of piano across history and geography. Highlights from Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue opened the show with uproarious 1920s flair and a playful piano duet between Andrea Lam and Simon Tedeschi. Later in the show, there was a more contemporary, Australian sound through an Elena Kats-Chernin medley, played beautifully by the woman herself alongside Tamara-Anna Cislowska. Thanks to the theme, the video excerpts also felt a lot stronger this year. Where last year’s videos felt kind of scattershot, these felt more squarely focused on the craft; demonstrated by the interviews with pianists like Lam and Beetlejuice: The Musical’s composer Eddie Perfect, a dissection into the workings of a piano with actual piano technicians the anatomy of the piano with actual piano technicians, and the use of piano in screen (once again hosted by my favourite ABC Classic host, Dan Golding). I do wish there were more interviews with the pianists in attendance on the night, though it was great to see a great variety of notable figures highlighted.

I say this because I feel like the team this year put a greater emphasis on the guest acts than prior. This does come with the territory of highlighting piano performances, but it felt like their presence was more ingrained into the program. Songs were announced more through the artists performing them rather than the compositions, with DJ Ha receiving notable build-up for his left-handed performance of Chopin’s 12 Études, no. 3. What well deserved build up as well; the camera may have been blocking it at times from where we were seated, but the way his fingers and knuckles rolled around the keys was as satisfying to my eyes as it was to my ears. Even as we were leaving the show, they were selling books and CDs by each of the pianists, something that felt completely absent from last year. That said, this focus does reinforce my earlier question: how do you split the focus between the piano player and the MSO? The show seems to address this by having some performances exclusively played on the piano, while most are accompanied by the orchestra. It’s probably not the most ideal solution, and it might have been better to just have the pianists as the sole performers, but Benjamin Northey and the band performed wonderfully as always for a lot of these pieces.

What didn’t go as wonderfully, however, was the show’s presentation. I felt that the lighting particularly saw a massive downgrade from last year’s light effects. Instead of the more subtle use of projections with light patterns, there was often an overreliance and overuse of projection displays for backdrops. The projection for Lam’s performance of Moonlight Sonata was particularly distracting; a full forest scene and a heavily detailed moon almost haphazardly projected onto the back wall. This kind of practice made a lot of the displays used for each song, while sometimes intricate, feel incredibly cheap looking.

Unfortunately, this cheapness persisted into the organisation of the show that night. See, the night I attended was when they were recording for the Saturday night broadcast on ABC. Granted, they at least announced at the top of the show how it might be more of an ‘irregular’ concert structure. Having attended last year’s recording session, I knew to expect some oddities; some camera and equipment movement here or there, maybe a delayed video, but usually very subtle. However, at certain points, it felt like they were taking the piss. There was a constant sense of disorganisation. So much of the recording set-up for the presenters felt last-minute and disruptive to the show happening around it, as they jumped around from place to place in Hamer Hall. Even the videos felt like they were constantly getting interrupted by early lighting cues, overlaying logos or designs before they had even finished! There were also a couple of awkward delays for guest cues; Konstantine Shamray’s entrance for Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2: III. Allegro scherzando was notably late. Even worse, when he did stagger out on stage, he looked practically drunk, staring up at the ceiling when he wasn’t playing. Don’t get me wrong, the performance was incredible, but like much of the show’s presentation, there was this sense of unprofessionalism that I couldn’t shake.

These small issues throughout the night were such a shame, because it brought down what was an otherwise pretty good showing of piano and orchestra alike. It is great that people will be able to experience the performances without major distractions, but for people like me who went in person, I think the ABC Classic team need to rethink how they cater to both audiences without affecting each experience. Still, with a much more focused show and greater emphasis on the artists involved, this felt like a great improvement from last year’s concert, and a nice treat for any piano enjoyer.

The recording of this year’s Classic 100 in Concert was broadcast on Saturday 21 June at 7:30pm across ABC TV and Radio channels, and is now available to stream on the ABC iView app.