Riccardo Chailly's Beethoven cycle with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, packed into five concerts spread across two weeks, is the musical highlight of the Barbican's autumn. The Gewandhaus is one of Europe's finest orchestras, while Chailly is one of a handful of living conductors who genuinely deserves to be called great. In the six years he has been in Leipzig, the centre of gravity of his programmes has shifted away from the late romantics back towards the early part of the 19th century. The current Beethoven project is his first complete cycle of the symphonies.
It began with the Second and Fifth. Chailly's approach is essentially mainstream: this is large-scale, traditional Beethoven, and with such a characterful orchestra at his disposal that seems entirely reasonable. That didn't mean there was anything lethargic about the performance, however. The Second bristled into life, as if the more revolutionary Beethoven of the Eroica and the Fifth was already flexing his muscles, while the latter was encompassed in a single bound, with everything leading towards the C major triumph of the finale.
Each of the concerts also includes a specially commissioned new work. Prefacing the Fifth was Carlo Boccadoro's Ritratto di Musico, which takes the rhythmic motto of that symphony as its starting point. Urged on by the timpani, the tempo is ratcheted up with swirling string figurations and minatory brass challenges, until eventually the energy is dissipated. It's brash, noisy and rather disjointed, but it did show once again what a wonderful orchestra the Gewandhaus is.
• Members of Guardian Extra can buy 2 tickets for the price of 1 for concerts on 1 and 2 November
