Singapore International Piano Festival: Benjamin Grosvenor

BENJAMIN GROSVENOR PIANO RECITAL

20th SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL PIANO FESTIVAL

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS CONCERT HALL

22 JUNE 2013

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24th June 2013 under the title "Amazing intellect, great technical prowess"

Many of the world's best musicians have graced the concert halls of Singapore, yet rarely has one as young as British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor left such a deep impression. Attending his recital was almost like experiencing music for the very first time, where his interpretations were the only ones that made sense.

Unlike more celebrated contemporaries, Grosvenor shows no interest in wild orgasmic facial expressions or attention-seeking theatrics, and his demeanour suggested that he was embarrassed to be onstage while music-making was in progress. He offers only what the music requires - his soul, mind and dexterous facility.

The textural clarity he brought out of Bach's Partita No. 4 in D only hinted at his immaculate control of the instrument. Each movement was masterfully poised and his grasp of rhythmic inflections in each dance brought out the folk-like qualities. Purists would probably scorn his use of pedal, but here it added more to the performance than it subtracted.

Performances of Chopin's works are often plagued by obscene sentimentality, yet there was hardly a hint of rubato in his approach to Chopin's F-sharp minor Polonaise and the Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise. The underlying poetry resonates beauty on its own and Grosvenor truly grasped the spirit of the piano, as the composer's music has oft been described to possess.

In the F-sharp minor, he generated a warm sonority from the Steinway grand and dove headfirst into the daunting octaves. The sense of heroism was overwhelming and the sheer intensity of the repetitive middle section was suffocating.

The glistening sheen he painted with the opening Andante Spianato, accompanied by a hypnotic wheeling left-hand figuration, was juxtaposed with a different approach to the Polish dance in the Grand Polonaise. While Chopin infuses his polonaises with elements of the military, it traditionally is a rather noble and courtly dance. This slant allowed the pianist to extract elegance out of the grace notes that litter the work and enabled the free-spiritedness of the work to come to the fore.

While Scriabin's works are often characterised by his obsession with dark magic and sorcery, his earlier smaller works were of immense melodic beauty. In five of his mazurkas from the Op. 3 and the The Op. 38 Valse, the resemblance to Chopin was striking. Grosvenor not only elicited a prism of colours from the miniatures, but was also alert to any hint of eroticism in the music. The thoughtful performance brought the listener through the development of Scriabin's craft towards an impressionistic mysticism.

Granados' Valse Poeticos and Adolf Schulz-Evler's extravagant "Arabesques" Variations on the Blue Danube Waltz closed the highly charged recital. In the Granados waltzes, scenes of flamboyant nature were artfully painted with a keen sense of proportion. For the first time that night, he allowed a hearty dose of lingering as the works required.

The ceaseless avalanche of running notes in Schulz-Evler's Arabesques was no match for Grosvenor's gargantuan technical prowess and they were tossed aside effortlessly. At times, the manner in which the melodic line was projected above the filigree made it sound like there were three hands playing.

The appreciative audience gave an enthusiastic ovation, and the pianist obliged with three encores, including Godowsky's transcription of Saint-Saens' The Swan and the barnstorming Boogie Woogie Etude by Morton Gould. Cue flashback of the late Shura Cherkassky's recital here in 1994, perhaps the last time a pianist astounded with such intellect.

Grosvenor is not the next big thing, he already is the big thing. Step aside, pianists.

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