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Nineteen year old British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor is internationally recognized for his electrifying performances and penetrating interpretations.
Following his highly successful debut album on Decca Classics (the youngest British musician to sign to Decca, and the first British pianist to join the label in almost 60 years) Benjamin will record his second disc featuring some of the foremost romantic piano concertos accompanied by the lush textures of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No.2 in G minor, Op.22
1. Andante sostenuto
2. Allegro scherzando
3. Presto
Saint-Saëns: The Carnival of the Animals (Grande Fantaisie Zoölogique)
The Swan (Arr. Godowsky)
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G
1. Allegramente
2. Adagio assai
3. Presto
Ravel: Prélude in A Minor
Prélude in A Minor
Gershwin: Rhapsody In Blue
Rhapsody In Blue
Gershwin: Love Walked In
Love Walked In
Benjamin Grosvenor on Ravel
Benjamin Grosvenor on Gershwin
Benjamin Grosvenor on Being Compared to Old-School Pianists
October 2012
*****
“reservations pale into Beckmesserish scratchings besides the delights of this disc and especially of Grosvenor's pianism. I can only concur with other critics who hear in his tone and phrasing echoes of a golden age...For me, his playing of the Godowsky version of Saint-Saens's Swan is a high point...A champagne disc - fizz and finesse.”
November 2012
“he opens [the Saint-Saens] with a rhetorical grandeur before setting the keyboard ablaze with a burst of swaggering, supercharged virtuosity...He has technique to burn and his pungency and force are things to marvel at...Grosvenor's Ravel brims over with individual touches...while in Gershwin his virtuosity is once more exultant rather than brash...Grosvenor's is, at the least, a talent in a thousand.”
The Arts Desk
30th September 2012
“His playing belies his youth; this is deliciously individual, mature pianism. The sound is warm, the style impulsive, affectionate. He’s not striving for technical perfection (though you won’t find any fluffs here), more content to draw the listener in and spin a good yarn...Immaculate, characterful orchestral playing from James Judd and the RLPO too”
11th August 2012
****
“Grosvenor and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic achieve a fine balance between [the Ravel's] urban bustle and more reflective passages...[Rhapsody in Blue is] less cluttered and more demotic in style, with more of a swing than in some stiffer, stuffier versions.”
10th August 2012
***
“in an age of ready-made virtuosos, his gifts are already distinctive — poetic, romantic, almost old-school in the way he makes phrases teeter on the edge of a pause or when one hand hesitates before the other in laying down a texture...Grosvenor’s rendition of the Rhapsody is definitely European, warmly sensuous rather than American pizzazz.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.
1. Andante sostenuto
