Commentators give a hard time to classical performers who make a connection with an audience, as if charisma, virtuosity and charm inevitably obscure the music’s real meaning. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. In the case of the young Chinese pianist Lang Lang, there is ample extracurricular distraction, from his extravagant dress sense to his high-end product endorsements, and sure enough, his performances have been denounced as flashy, headstrong and capricious.

In Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto, those apparent faults might become virtues. This is music that hustles and bustles then subsides into passages of otherworldly calm. Lang Lang, beginning his UBS Soundscapes series, followed every twist and turn as if his life depended on it. He made the most of the discords, toying with rhythms as if making it up on the spot, pounding the keys with impetuous energy.

If that gave his reading a restless, driven quality, there were also moments of preternatural delicacy. He gave the impression of tightly coiled energy barely in check, and the music benefited. Conductor Daniel Harding followed him closely, and the London Symphony Orchestra proudly displayed its spikiest winds and most silken strings. It was a persuasive performance, well received; not quite well enough, though, to persuade Lang Lang to give an encore.

Bruckner’s immense Fifth Symphony filled the concert’s second half. In the opening movement, not every episode seemed quite knitted into the fabric, but things settled. Harding played pauses and silences for maximum effect, generating an almost operatic sense of drama. As always with the LSO, individual details — here a sinuous clarinet, there a mournful oboe — shone forth brightly, but collective momentum pulled everything together.
Series continues until Sunday (020 7638 8891, www.lso.co.uk).