News

  • Benjamin in Singapore

    Benjamin's recital in the June 2010 Singapore International Piano Festival was warmly received by Straits Times critic, Dr Chang Tou Liang:

    "His Chopin, two Nocturnes book-ending the Third Scherzo, juxtaposed seamless cantabile with scintillation and immaculate octave-work. Ravel's devilish Gaspard de la nuit bristled, not just with stunning note-perfection but a multi-layered appreciation of its three movements; the variegated rippling of Ondine, desolation in Le Gibet and Scarbo's impish malevolence."

  • This and That

    The American Classics Today website has hailed Benjamin’s debut CD ‘This and That’ in a review by Jed Distler:

     

    “The 17-year-old pianist Benjamin Grosvenor has garnered extraordinary acclaim over the past few years, and his solo-debut disc thoroughly justifies all the buzz, and then some.  He tosses off three of Nikolai Kapustin's jazz-influenced etudes with effortless aplomb and debonair style. The same goes for his beautifully sculpted Scarlatti sonatas…the pianist characterizes the three Iberia selections with beautifully proportioned rubatos, playful accents, and skillful pedaling.…I hope that this disc will turn out to be the first of many major milestones for this amazingly gifted musician.”

     

  • Benjamin in London

    Benjamin performs Schumann's piano concerto in A minor with the Kymi Sinfonietta, under the baton of Yasuo Shinosaki.

    Sunday 23 May 2010, 7pm
    Cadogan Hall, London

    Programme:

    SIBELIUS Pelleas & Melisande 
    SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A minor
    BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 7, Op. 92 in A major

    www.cadoganhall.com/

  • Benjamin in Germany

     

    Benjamin’s 15 recital tour of Germany in March was greeted rapturously by audiences and critics alike.  In a review headlined ‘A Keyboard Visionary’, the Süddeutschen Zeitung wrote that, “The ‘vocabulary’ of Grosvenor’s ‘piano dictionary’ knows no bounds. Like a painter, he sketches scintillating moods in Ravel’s ‘Gaspard de la Nuit.’ And Liszt’s B minor Sonata matures into a grand unity…the refreshingly modest Grosvenor mastered even the most virtuoso finger-acrobatics with natural ease.  Not for one moment, however, was it Grosvenor’s intention to emphasize his technical skills…the listener can concentrate on the musical substance underlying the dazzling side-effects. Especially in this trait, Grosvenor’s unlimited abilities and his extraordinary range of musical expression are evident.”  The Starnberger Merkur reported of Benjamin’s Liszt Sonata that “thundering climaxes and effective accelerations had room to evolve.  Grosvenor’s interpretation suggested orchestral grandeur as well as the intimacy of chamber music.”

     

  • This and That

    Benjamin’s debut CD, recorded when he was 16, is recommended in the April 2010 Gramophone magazine, where it has attracted a glowing review:  ‘This phenomenal recital is entitled “This and That”…less modestly it could have been called “One Marvel after Another” for the performances by Benjamin Grosvenor exhibit a skill and talent not heard since Kissin's legendary teenage Russian debut. Even the most outlandish difficulties are tossed aside not just as child's play but with a seemingly endless poetic finesse and resource…To call such playing that of a master-pianist will invite accusations of exaggeration and hyperbole – but what else can I say?’  Read the full review in the Reviews section

    'This and That' Benjamin's 2008 recording for the Bowers and Wilkins online music club has been reviewed by Tim Parry in the Jan/Feb edition of the International Piano Magazine: 'Throughout Grosvenor plays with awesome control, yet there is nothing schooled about his playing. Repeated notes can shimmer or fire like a machine gun; sonorities range from the carressingly impressionistic to full-throated quasi-orchestral; and he knows when to take his time and when to push the music at full throttle. Indeed, it is hard to know which is the more startling in a pianist still in his mid-teens: the all-encompassing mastery of technique, or the flair and maturity of imagination. He really is a rare talent.' Tim Parry.

  • Benjamin in the USA

     

    Benjamin's February 2010 recitals in the US caused a major stir.  "What those fortunate enough to find a seat experienced was a 17-year-old artist who seems able to channel the emotional storms of adolescence into high-contrast interpretations of Romantic masterworks and their 20th-century antecedents. His was a performance of tumult and beauty, in which he displayed tremendous technical skill and interpretive depth" wrote TwinCities' critic Rob Hubbard of Benjamin's recital for The Frederic Chopin Society of Minnesota, commenting on the performance of Liszt's B minor Sonata, a work dedicated to Schumann, that "Grosvenor found the connection to that composer with his high-intensity shifts between darkness, fury and resignation".  Benjamin's Gilmore Series recital was also greeted rapturously, critic C.J. Gianakaris declaring "He exuded superb musicality...The pianist created unearthly fluttery figures in [Chopin's] Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 39, giving it a spiritual dimension...Ravel's brilliant 'Gaspard de la nuit' closed the recital. The full house was hushed in anticipation. As suits a movement involving Ondine,the seductive mermaid, Ravel composed music suggesting water. Grosvenor magically conjured it using glissandos and chromatics...His was a tour de force performance."
    (See the Reviews section for links to the complete reviews.)

     

  • Benjamin in Finland

     

    Benjamin's November 2009 performances of the Beethoven Third Concerto in Finland were greeted with great praise. "Wunderkind dives straight to the heart of the Music", declared the headline of the review in the Helsingin Sanomat, continuing "The name of 17-year-old Benjamin Grosvenor, who well merits the title of Wunderkind, tends on the whole to feature only in the concert calendars of the world's best-known orchestras... this young man with the air of a sensitive, poetic lad, makes the substance, the heart, the meaning of the music simply flow from the piano. Just when you think you have heard the most delicately glittering note, the pianist plays some more: even clearer, more delicate. Never before has the meaning of the Largo been more obvious. The cadenzas in the Allegro con brio and Rondo sparkled with animated brilliance.