Benjamin at the Proms

Benjamin returned to the BBC Proms on Friday for his fourteenth appearance at this festival, celebrating the Ravel anniversary with the composer's Concerto in G alongside Ryan Bancroft and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. The performance is available for catch-up on BBC Sounds.

Of the performance The Guardian noted:

'[Grosvenor's] playing brought out the bluesiness of Ravel’s music, especially in the slow movement, where the tender, meandering melody sounded a split-second out from the accompaniment, as if it were being delivered by a singer perched on a stool in a jazz club. Every note was clear, even as the conductor Ryan Bancroft romped through ever-faster tempos in the finale – and that also went for Grosvenor’s encore, the finale of Prokofiev’s Sonata No 7, three glorious minutes of ferocious edge-of-the-seat brilliance.'

Bachtrack:

'Grosvenor then joined the orchestra for Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, taking the first movement with a ruminative and delicate touch, the tone warm and rounded. Proms audiences often come in for some criticism, but in the second movement there was a remarkable sense of hush and attentiveness to Grosvenor’s playing, where he conjured the lightest of sounds, with a style that at times seemed to evoke Bach in the profundity of sound produced. The balance with the orchestra was deftly managed, with silky clarinets and fragrant flutes caressing, rather than competing with, Grosvenor’s playing.  And then the third movement, a boisterous joy with pert brass interjecting across suddenly spunky piano-playing, every note defined and vibrant. A pulse-rating treat that rightly drew cheers from the audience.'

Classical Source:

'Grosvenor had the measure of Ravel’s two-handed G-major concerto from the whipcrack opening and thumb-nail destroying runs up and down the white notes of the keyboard to start, to the subtle shift from Spanish hints to Gershwin-esque jazz in the second subject of the first movement. The slow movement was a study in sublime stillness with woodwind soli sharing the limelight before the rhythmic-busting finale providing a workout for everybody. Exhilarating stuff.'

Opera Today:

'It was a very fine rendition too, with two characteristics very much to the fore: Grosvenor’s evenness of line and his crystalline tone. Throughout, Bancroft ensured a sensitive dovetailing of the orchestral accompaniment with the solo displays. At the start of the second movement, Adagio assai, Grosvenor found a warm sense of intimacy which recalled the words of the work’s dedicatee, Marguerite Long: “One of the most touching melodies which has come from the human heart.” The Finale bubbled along like the proverbial simmering pot, light and feathery, always alive to its capricious impulses. Grosvenor’s virtuosic power shone through his encore, the concluding movement of Prokofiev’s Seventh Piano Sonata.'