Photo: Marco Borggreve
Press
2012
"Bach’s Partita No 4 in D major lent itself ideally to his clean, firm touch. The ornamentation of the Ouverture was wonderfully precise, and the alternating runs and chordal passages in the Allemande had a pervasive sweetness ... [in Schulz-Evier’s ‘Blue Danube’] Grosvenor was in his element, clothing his theme in crazy clouds of diaphanous figurations. Three encores – an Albeniz-Godowsky tango, Liszt’s ‘Gnomenreigen’ played like the wind, and a high-octane boogie – had the hall on its feet.”
- The Independent, November 2012
“He walked on with that guileless straightforwardness that comes from complete confidence, frowned at the keyboard for two seconds as if to take its measure, and plunged into the grand, high-stepping flourishes that begin Bach’s D major Partita ... That gesture gave us something essential about Grosvenor. He’s always calmly on top of the situation. Even at the moments of hectic virtuosity – and there were plenty of them in this taxing concert – every move seems prepared and measured, and exquisitely placed.”
- The Telegraph, November 2012
"His Saint-Saens concerto alternated between a distant dream world and outbreaks of sparkling effervescence, and his encore – Saint-Saens 'The Swan' in Godowsky’s transcription – glided poetically across the keys.”
- Financial Times, August 2012
"a remarkable, exciting talent ... the Royal Philharmonic’s concert was packed to the rafters and I put that down to the draw of Grosvenor ... fearless and thrilling."
- Gramophone, August 2012
“The virtue of Saint-Saens’s second piano concerto, which he played in Prom 43 with Charles Dutoit and the Royal Philharmonic, was that its second and third movements allowed him to stay where he likes to be, on the sunny side of the street, while the first let him deepen his sound. With its majestically arpeggiated figurations, the opening might have been a Bach-Busoni organ arrangement, and that was the spirit in which he delivered it; he gave the first movement proper the requisite nobility, part Beethovenian and part Chopinesque, with crystalline passage-work and a cadenza with no trace of affectation."
- The Independent, August 2012
"The best moment in this year’s concert came when all were quite silent, listening open mouthed to a red-shirted student pianist make light of the dense tangle of notes into which Leopold Godowski saw fit to weave the melody of Saint-Saens’s Swan. Audience and orchestra alike consumed in rapt delight, and the cavernous Albert Hall seemed to shrink to the proportions of a private salon".
- The Guardian, August 2012
"Lo mejor llegó ya con Chopin, solo con oír el inicio del 'allegro maestoso' bastó para ver que Grosvenor es mucho más que un niño prodigio... El 'Largo' fue un prodigio de contención que logró el primer silencio profundo en la sala Mozart, uno de esos silencios que solo los grandes logran... Al salir del concierto teníamos la impresión de no haber visto a un joven pianista más, sino de haber tenido el gusto de conocer, al que será muy pronto uno de los grandes pianistas de las próximas décadas."
- Heraldo de Aragón, May 2012
“It was a prodigious debut, marked in equal parts by Grosvenor’s outstanding technical accomplishment and his interpretive depth.”
- The Washington Post, March 2012
"a formidable technician and a thoughtful, coolly assured interpreter”
- New York Times, March 2012
"In between all of this was 19-year-old British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor’s original and compelling take on Schumann’s Piano Concerto. That all the notes fell comfortably within his prodigious fingers was no surprise.What was, however was his sensitivity and prescience of all things musical, making every phrase and gesture count and sounding freshly minted. Like an ultimate form of chamber music, he knew when to blend in and when to exert himself. The Intermezzo was a masterclass in the art of conversation with the orchestra and the finale’s off-kilter waltz traipsed unerringly and brilliantly. His encore, Rachmaninov’s salon-like Polka De V.R., offered a delightful sleight of hand. This youngster is already a master.”
- The Strait Times, February 2012