When Jan Lisiecki was asked to take the place of American pianist Murray Perahia for a series of concerts last year in Berlin, he made what may have seemed like an odd request of promoters.

Perahia was to play Ludwig Van Beethoven’s five piano concertos. Lisiecki was asked which of the five he would like to perform as a replacement. For the 24-year-old Calgary pianist, it was a strange question. Usually, when a musician is replacing another, he or she is asked to retain the same program or allowed to create a completely different one.

“He was intended to play all five Beethoven concertos in a cycle at the Konzerthaus in Berlin, which is a very storied and famous and beautiful hall,” says Lisiecki, in an interview with Postmedia from his Calgary home. “So I thought about it a little bit and went back to them and said ‘Well, if you would like me to replace Murray, I would actually request that I do it only on the condition that I play all five concertos to respect the original idea that he had.’ They were quite surprised. It’s a big undertaking to play five Beethoven concertos, even with a lot of advance notice. To do it with a month of advance notice was extreme. So they were surprised.

“Then my November was insane,” he adds. “Because I had my normal concerts. By no means was I sitting at home preparing. I still had a lot of other things to do, which did not include any of the Beethoven concertos.”

What’s even more remarkable is that the five concertos, performed with chamber orchestra The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields over three concerts in Berlin, were recorded in December of 2018. Last month, Beethoven: Complete Piano Concertos was released as Lisiecki’s sixth album for the Deutsche Grammophon label.

“Sometimes you have to see things that are presented to you and accept the challenge,” he says. “This was one of those cases. I saw it that way. A challenge, by nature, is unexpected and unpredictable. You take it on and I think you can grow as a musician and that is what I’m hoping for. I can only say that I’m glad the end result was also a success.”

Lisiecki will tour behind the album in 2020, playing shows in Europe and North America with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in June of July. In fact, 2020 is set to be a big year for Beethoven in general since it marks the composer’s 250th birthday. It will also presumably be a busy one for Lisiecki, who has no plans of slowing down. His interview with Postmedia earlier this week took place within minutes of him returning to his Calgary home after a month-and-a-half tour that took him throughout Europe, Asia and North America. That included a concert a Carnegie Hall last week, his third at the prestigious New York venue, with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

On Friday and Saturday, the pianist will be performing concerts with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. As with the shows in Berlin, Lisiecki is again a replacement, filling in for German violinist Arabella Steinbacher who cannot travel to Calgary because of her pregnancy. As part of the CPO’s Modern Masters series, Lisiecki has chosen a program that includes Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto, Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten and Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2.

So while his homecoming shows will be Beethoven-free, Lisiecki has performed the composer’s work for much of his career, which began long before he hit his teens in Calgary.

“I started learning Beethoven’s music when I was young, he is one of the pillars of classical keyboard music along with other composers such as Bach and Mozart or Chopin,” Lisiecki says. “He connects the romantic world with the classical world and this tug-of-war between the two is what makes the music so emotional and so approachable at the same time.”

Lisiecki’s first performance of Beethoven’s third piano concerto was part of one of his first concerts with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa when he was 14. In 2013, he played the Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with conductor Claudio Abbado and the Orchestra Mozart in Bologna.

He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2017 playing the same piece with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

“There are so many memories that it’s hard to decipher, but it’s always been a part of my life,” he says. “Now, that’s not to say that I know these concertos inside out. There are five of them and the third and fourth and fifth are quite well known and often played. But the first and the second are straddling more the classical side, they are more Mozartian. When people think of a Beethoven concerto they think of the latter three. The later ones have this depth of emotion that we are accustomed to. The first two are closer to Mozart or Haydn. I didn’t have as much opportunity to play them. I had only played the second piano concerto, for instance, once in my life. That was another big challenge facing me when I accepted the invitation.”

As with most of his albums, Lisiecki approached recording the Beethoven concertos with a sense of spontaneity in order to “capture the moment.” But even by these standards, the recording process was a little “extreme,” he says. The pianist and The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields had “one-and-a-half takes” to work with, including the concert and a brief hour-long rehearsal.

“But I think this lives very well with who I am with a performer, because I have the same approach when I’m on stage no matter what,” Lisiecki says. “I want to give the audience something they will remember, give them a special moment. It’s not that I don’t strive for perfection, of course I want it to be the best it can. But that’s not the optimal way of making music. You want to create, you want to make something beautiful and I think this last recording is a reflection of that.”

Jan Lisiecki will perform with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra at the Jack Singer Concert Hall on Oct. 4 and 5 at 7:30 p.m.