Biography

Today a celebrated recitalist, British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor at the age of ten became the youngest-ever winner of four local and national competitions in the UK. He gave his first full recital at the age of eleven in the dual roles of pianist and cellist. That same year he also performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 (K. 467), and the following year the Ravel Concerto in G, with which he won a BBC Young Musician award. Since then, Grosvenor has developed a high-profile international career, performing with many of the world’s top-tier orchestras including those of London, Cleveland, Leipzig, Zurich, Paris, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. In the summer of 2011, at the age of nineteen, Grosvenor made his debut at the BBC Proms as the youngest-ever soloist on opening night. He has since played at the Proms on numerous occasions. His discography includes a 2020 recording of the Chopin concertos, which won awards from both Gramophone magazine and the French journal Diapason, the latter publication’s critic proclaiming that it was “a version to rank among the best, and confirmation of an extraordinary artist.” In 2011 Grosvenor signed a contract with Decca, the youngest artist ever and the first British pianist in sixty years to sign with this label. To date he has released five recordings on Decca, the most recent being a Schumann/Brahms program. Grosvenor is an Ambassador of Music Masters, a charity dedicated to making music education accessible to all children regardless of their background, championing diversity and inclusion. 1st LMMC solo recital.

https://www.benjamingrosvenor.co.uk/

Notes

Brahms’s Intermezzi Op. 117 of 1892 are among his very last compositions. The first is prefaced by words from a Scottish lullaby. Brahms puts the melody in an inner voice surrounded by a gently rocking accompaniment. The central section (all three Intermezzi are in ternary form) moves from E-flat major to E-flat minor, taking the listener to even more remote regions of somber reflection. The second Intermezzo is a study on a recurring, descending two-note motif embedded in garlands of accompanying arpeggios. The mood is wistful, pensive. Brahms called the third Intermezzo “the lullaby of all my griefs.”

Schumann’s Fantasie represents one of the towering landmarks of the nineteenth-century piano repertory. It is quintessentially music of the romantic period  ̶  sprawling in form, passionate in character, utterly personal and unorthodox in conception. To Franz Liszt, it was “a noble work, worthy of Beethoven.” The opening bars surge with drama and restlessness: over a foaming, turbulent left-hand figuration is heard a long, soulful outpouring of impassioned lyricism. The second movement contains two closely intertwined ideas: a proud march theme and a rhythmic figure of alternating short and long notes. The quieter central section is typically Schumannesque in its gently poetic musing. The final movement evokes the spirit of the nocturne  ̶  dreamy, tender, a world without conflict. By the end, which has finally returned to C major after excursions to many foreign keys, the mood is one of quiet elation and serenity.

When Viktor Hartmann, an artist, designer and sculptor, died of a heart attack in 1873, his close friend Modest Mussorgsky was devastated and slipped into a depression aggravated by an alcohol problem. Vladimir Stassov, a music critic and friend of both Mussorgsky and Hartmann, arranged an exhibit of about four hundred works of the deceased artist, hoping that this tribute might relieve Mussorgsky’s depression. Thanks to Stassov, Mussorgsky was inspired to create a suite of ten musical portraits for piano, but it did not achieve popularity in any form until Maurice Ravel orchestrated it in 1922. Each musical portrait is based on one of Hartmann’s paintings. A “Promenade” theme initiates an imaginary stroll through the picture gallery, a theme that returns several times throughout the work as the viewer moves on to another painting or group of paintings.

Robert Markow