SHADOWS, FANTASIES & FIREWORKS / BENJAMIN GROSVENOR Piano Recital / Review

 

SHADOWS, FANTASIES & FIREWORKS

BENJAMIN GROSVENOR Piano Recital

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (19 October 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 21 October 2025 with the title "Halloween came early with pianist Benjamin Grosvenor's recital".

It is twelve days before 31 October but Halloween came early with British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor’s solo recital, presented by Altenburg Arts, which had more than a touch of the morbid and macabre. The stage was drenched in blood red lighting as he opened with Frederic Chopin’s Second Sonata in B flat minor (Op.35), popularly known as his Funeral March Sonata.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

German composer Robert Schumann called it “four of Chopin’s wildest children under the same roof”, and he was not far off the mark. The opening movement’s outpouring of raw emotion was given its full measure by Grosvenor and even if he did not include four bars of the Grave introduction in the exposition repeat, it mattered little.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

And even before the dust could settle, the Scherzo blazed forth with such vehement intent, that the famous Funeral March could have been the only rightful outcome. In both movements, contrasts provided by the lyrical centres from the rumbling beginnings were starkly delineated. Then came the most ghostly of finales, two minutes of “wind blowing over the gravestones”, its breathless Presto hammering home the finality of death.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Now illuminated in pale blue, Frenchman Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit followed, a triptych of Gothic horror inspired by verses of symbolist poet Aloysius Bertrand. Grosvenor could not quite achieve the triple-pianissimo in the quivering tremulous opening of Ondine, but provided the lightest of touches to the glissandi and gravity-defying arpeggios in this Impressionist exploration of the fluid realm.

The repeated tolling of B flat octaves in Le Gibet cast a hypnotic spell, accompanying the visage of a corpse gently swaying from a gallows. The scampering of Scarbo, the finale’s devilish imp on crocked knees, has to be experienced in person as Grosvenor’s take no prisoners approach would easily best the finest versions on record. In short, it was breathtaking.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition occupied the recital’s second half. Often criticised for threadbare piano writing, it takes a special artist to transform the monochrome score into brilliant Technicolor. Grosvenor achieved it without resorting to rewriting the music the way the great Ukrainian-American Vladimir Horowitz had done.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

By sharply contrasting its many jagged contours, adding tremolos and doubling bass notes, all done discreetly, the music truly came alive. The Promenade movements which preceded each painting were given their own characterisations, equating to the viewer’s (or listener’s) changing moods.

Which were the most memorable pictures? The Old Castle possessed a melancholy of the ages. Goldenberg and Schmuyle, the two Polish Jews, were cast as an implacable duo. Catacombs and Cum Mortuis In Lingua Mortua (With the Dead in a Dead Language) provided an eerie chill, before the final inexorable romp that was Baba Yaga’s Hut and The Great Gate of Kiev.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Grosvenor’s encores were no less gripping. Ravel’s Jeux d’eau (Water Games or Fountains) was the perfect companion to the earlier Ondine while the inner voicings of the Bach-Siloti Prelude in B minor made for a sublime close.

A PIANO RECITAL NOT TO MISS: BENJAMIN GROSVENOR on 19 October 2025

BENJAMIN GROSVENOR RETURNS! And he is better than ever. A recital programme with great repertoire works that is not going to disappoint. Need we say more?

His recital as follows:

CHOPIN Piano Sonata No.2 

in B flat minor, Op.35 "Funeral March"

RAVEL Gaspard de la nuit

MUSSORSGKY Pictures at an Exhibition

Sunday 19 October 2025

Victoria Concert Hall, 5 pm

Tickets available at SISTIC:

Piano Recital by Benjamin GrosvenorShadows, Fantasies & Fireworks

Now watch this video:

Ravel Ondine from Gaspard de la nuit

Chopin's Berceuse Op.57

Benjamin Grosvenor is presented by Altenburg Arts

KALEIDOSCOPIC / INSPIRED BY LISZT / Benjamin Grosvenor & Hyeyoon Park / Review

KALEIDOSCOPIC

Hyeyoon Park, Violin

Benjamin Grosvenor, Piano

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (25 September 2022)

 

INSPIRED BY LISZT

Benjamin Grosvenor, Piano

Victoria Concert Hall

Tuesday (27 September 2022)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 5 October 2022 with the title "Pianist Benjamin Grosvenor easily shifts gears from accompanist to soloist".

 

Concert-goers in Singapore were fortunate to have had two of United Kingdom’s greatest pianists performing at Victoria Concert Hall within the same month. A few weeks ago, Stephen Hough gave a solo recital and performed a concerto, and the last week saw Benjamin Grosvenor partnering prize-winning Korean violinist Hyeyoon Park in concert, besides a solo recital of his own.

 

The embarrassment of riches began with Sunday afternoon’s recital, which opened with Mozart’s Violin Sonata No.24 in F major (K.376). Lest one thought all Mozart sonatas favoured the piano, this one had both instruments as equal partners. Park, with her sweet and capacious tone, served well the music’s simple charm and flowing melodies, complemented by Grosvenor’s sensitive and steadfast keyboard support. The finale had the lightness of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute, bringing out plentiful good humour.

 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

What followed were three diverse 20^th century works. Very brief, atonal and aphoristic, Anton Webern’s Four Pieces (Op.7) explored new worlds of shade and texture. This shock to the system was contrasted with the lyricism of Debussy’s late Violin Sonata, which shunned impressionism and going back to the ancient roots of French music.

 

Midway through its second movement, a violin tuning peg had gotten loose, necessitating a restart. Shrugging off the mishap, the duo retuned and completed the work with a tour de force display. Just as eventful was Bartok’s Rhapsody No.1, strongly influenced by Hungarian folk and dance music. The Magyar strutting and swagger of its opening soon gave way to unbuttoned exuberance of gypsy fiddling, gripping as it was intoxicating.  

 

Completing the evening was Schubert’s Fantasy in C major (D.934), a substantial virtuoso work of Biedermeier beauty longer than all of his violin sonatas and piano fantasies. Within its heart is a lovely set of variations on Schubert’s own lied Sei Mir Gegrusst (I Greet Thee), played with a love that transcends all, before closing with with the happiest of affirmations. The vociferous applause yielded two lovely encores, Schumann’s sublime Abendlied and the rarely-heard Rachmaninov Hungarian Dance (Op.6 No.2), which brought down the house.

 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Impressive as a collaborative pianist, Grosvenor was however a law onto his own in solo piano music on Tuesday evening. A change in programme saw Cesar Franck’s Prelude, Chorale & Fugue open his solo recital, a work of quasi-religious inspiration which illuminated like a cathedral of sonority. Widely spread chords and repeated figurations reminded listeners of organ music, and Grosvenor’s sheer clarity in multiple contrapuntal lines were vital in keeping its spirit alive.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

 

In the same key of B minor was the Liszt Sonata, a most logical follow-up. Again, his cognizance of recurring themes and overall architecture built this monumental half-hour edifice arch-by-arch through prayerful moments and shattering climaxes. The severe technical challenges were taken in stride, and seldom has both cerebral and visceral faculties been equally aroused.

 

Colour ruled the recital’s second half, beginning with Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz’s First Book from Iberia, three tonal portraits of his homeland. The allure of folk music was relived in the dreamy Evocacion, contrasted with the ebullient dance of El Puerto, before culminating in the rowdy Corpus Christi procession in Festival Day In Seville.

 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Grosvenor’s ability to shift gears became all the more admirable in Ravel’s impressionistic water piece Jeux d’eau (Fountains) before launching into the freewheeling mayhem of La Valse. Here was a depiction of a Viennese waltz gone awry, as a world plunged inexorably into war and carnage. With Grosvenor at the helm, there could not have been a more exhilarating ride.

 

Buoyed by loud cheers, his encores of two of Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera’s Argentinian Dances, portraits of a graceful maiden and outlaw cowboy, were enthusiastically accepted.

    

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Benjamin Grosvenor and Hyeyoon Park 

were presented by Altenburg Arts.

 

CD Review (The Straits Times, July 2017)

HOMAGES

BENJAMIN GROSVENOR, Piano

Decca 483 0255 / *****

There are two separate tributes in British wunderkind Benjamin Grosvenor's latest solo disc. The first is a homage to Johann Sebastian Bach's legacy, which opens with Busoni's famous transcription of the Chaconne in D minor (from Bach's Violin Partita No.2). It is a glorious performance which builds up arch-like through a series of climaxes while sensitive to many subtle nuances. 

This is followed by two of Mendelssohn's Prelude & Fugues (Op.35), Romantic updates of the contrapuntal writing celebrated in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, and Cesar Franck's well-known neo-Bachian Prelude, Chorale and Fugue, which are no less impressively rendered.  

The second tribute features the musings of Romantic composers on the sunny climes of Italy. Chopin's Barcarolle finds Grosvenor in cantabile heaven in this Venetian gondolier's song. In Liszt's Venezia E Napoli (from Years Of Pilgrimage), the song-like thread continues for Gondoliera and Canzone, before erupting in free-wheeling coruscations for the vertiginous Tarantella. 

Liszt employs several popular Venetian and Neapolitan songs which are turned into a feast of pianism where Grosvenor obliges with obvious relish. Another highly pleasurable listen beckons. 

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2015)

DANCES

BENJAMIN GROSVENOR, Piano

Decca 478 5334 / *****

British wunderkind pianist Benjamin Grosvenor has been well-advised on his recording output, which averages one disc a year. Every concept album has been a winner and his third CD, a Gramophone Award recipient, is centred on dance-forms through the ages. Not all of the works can be danced to, but all are celebrations of the dance genre, including Bach's Partita No.4 in D major. Barring its first movement which is a French overture, the ensuing six movements include the allemande, courante, air, sarabande, minuet and gig, all antique dances which Grosvenor enlivens in his crisply articulated and graceful way.

From Chopin's native homeland comes his Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise (Op.22) and F sharp minor Polonaise (Op.44), the latter which can sound interminable but not in Grosvenor's hands. He also contributes three Scriabin Mazurkas (with debt of influence to Chopin), Scriabin's ecstatically charged Waltz (which transcends the Chopinesque variety) and Spaniard Enrique Granados' eight charming Valsas Poeticos (Poetic Waltzes).

Pride of place goes to the Schulz-Evler fantastically filigreed transcription of Johann Strauss' Blue Danube Waltz, a world apart from the simplicity of Godowsky's take on Albeniz's Tango. To close, American Morton Gould's Boogie Woogie Étude, a favourite of the late great Shura Cherkassky, brings the house down. Play it again, Ben!     

DON'T MISS:

BENJAMIN GROSVENOR PLAYS LISZT

with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra

conducted by OKKO KAMU

10 & 11 April 2015, 

Victoria Concert Hall at 7.30 pm

Tickets available at SISTIC

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, June 2013)

NOBUYUKI TSUJII

LIVE AT CARNEGIE HALL

EuroArts DVD 2059088 / *****

The young Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii, blind from birth, was already a celebrity in Japan before he shared First Prize at the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. After that, he became a universal icon. This video recording of his Carnegie Hall début on 10 November 2011 showed that his victory was no fluke, a genuine and prodigious talent totally beyond doubt. He learnt his music by ear, with each work painstakingly pieced together with the help of teachers and an instinctual grasp of diverse musical idioms. There is no performance in his recital that does not sound convincing.

One suspends belief on witnessing the opening piece, Improvisation & Fugue by the American John Musto, specially commissioned for the competition. His mastery of its seemingly atonal themes and jazzy riffs is a feat that demands repeated viewing. The Beethoven Tempest Sonata (Op.31 No.2) that follows possesses the requisite drama and fire, while he tosses off the technicalities of Liszt’s Un Sospiro and Rigoletto Paraphrase with the greatest of ease. That his view of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is more characterised and trenchant than many sighted pianists is also significant. There are three encores which reveal a more mellow and sentimental side to his artistry. If this DVD does not inspire you or warm your heart, nothing will.

Nobu's piano recital at Esplanade Concert Hall on Tuesday (25 June) has been sold out.

GERSHWIN / SAINT-SAENS / RAVEL

BENJAMIN GROSVENOR, Piano

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic / James Judd

Decca 478 352 7 / *****

The 2012 Gramophone Award-winning young British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor’s début concerto recording confirms the plaudits he has been receiving of late. This is a collection of easy-on-the-ear piano concertos that demands elegance, finesse and intelligence to pull off, not just a surfeit of bravura. Saint-Saëns’s Second Piano Concerto was once described as a journey “from Bach to Offenbach”. It can sound vulgar and frivolous, but in his hands, comes across as witty, even thoughtful. Ravel’s jazz-inflected Piano Concerto in G major benefits from his rapier-keen reflexes in the fast outer movements, and a graceful dreaminess for the Mozartian slow movement.

That leaves Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue, in its original 1924 version for jazz band, which he owns with a swing and swagger than would make jazzmen jealous. As a gratifying touch, he offers solo encores after each concerto. The choices of Godowsky’s transcription of Saint-Saens’s The Swan, Ravel’s minute-long Prelude (crafted as a conservatory sight-reading piece) and Percy Grainger’s take on Gershwin’s Love Walked In have an exquisite touch and reflect his catholic tastes. Grosvenor’s next album, whatever it may be, will be keenly awaited.

BOOK IT:

BENJAMIN GROSVENOR Piano Recital

@ 20^th Singapore International Piano Festival

Saturday 22 June 2013

School of the Arts / 8 pm

Tickets available at SISTIC (Selling out fast)

 

SSO Concert:The Sebelius Symphonies: Nos.4 & 5 / Review

THE SIBELIUS SYMPHONIES: Nos.4 & 5
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Esplanade Concert Hall
Friday (24 February 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 February 2012 with the title "Every phrase freshly minted".

The Fourth and Fifth Symphonies of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius make for an exhausting listen when heard together in a same sitting. Imagine what it must be like for the performers on stage or the conductor, even if he happens to be the renowned Sibelius interpreter Okko Kamu.

His insights into the enigmatic Fourth Symphony, one so elusive that it reveals only some of its secrets some of the time, translated into a slickly delivered performance even if one still remained baffled after this hearing. The low strings which opened the work provided an atmospheric hush, aided by Principal Cellist Ng Pei Sian’s rich and sonorous solo. This set the tone for the most forbidding of works that ran close to 40 minutes.

Its themes, terse and austere as the Arctic winter, do not lend themselves to easy memory. Following its glacial pace was like a trudge knee-deep in snow, but one had to rely on Kamu as expert guide, to negotiate each treacherous musical crevasse and precarious ice-bridge without encountering disaster.

It was trying but not without its rewards. The slow third movement built inexorably to a sublime climax, one that did not seem plausible earlier, and the finale had a cogency that seemed definitive until its puzzlingly subdued end. This reaction against convention, almost an anti-symphony, was Sibelius’s unique vision of staring into a void.

The Fifth Symphony initially sounded as if cut from the same fabric, except it was to have a totally different outcome. This was after all the seed of Kamu’s love affair with the SSO when he conducted on his debut here some 27 years ago. Dark gave way to light in this far more accommodating work, with the splendid quartet of French horns providing the chiming refrain to a blazing conclusion.

In between all of this was the 19-year-old British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor’s original and compelling take on Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor. 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.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, February 2012)

BENJAMIN GROSVENOR Piano Recital
Decca 478 3206 / Rating *****

British pianists are not exactly covering themselves in glory at international piano competitions these days, but all this seems irrelevant in the face of a talent such as the 19-year-old Benjamin Grosvenor. Following up on his appearance at last year’s First Night of the BBC Proms, his new solo recording is a stupendous achievement. Inspired programming plays a large part. For example, instead of playing Chopin’s Four Scherzos straight through, he separates each of these fast and brilliant essays with the calm and tranquillity of the Nocturnes. Blessed with impeccable technique, and with certain liberties taken in tempi and rubato, these contrasts simply enhance the listening experience.

The Liszt contribution includes two transcriptions of Chopin’s Polish Songs – My Joys and The Maiden’s Wish - and the diminutive but sublime nocturne En Reve. He finishes off with Ravel’s diabolical Gaspard de la nuit, which he had performed at the Singapore International Piano Festival in 2010. He simply revels in the impressionism and expressionism inspired by Aloysius Bertrand’s poems. The mercurial allure of Ondine, the droll tolling of a distant bell in Le Gibet, and the maniacal laughter of Scarbo are vividly captured in these perfectly realised vignettes. Here is a reading that matches the best in the business.

BOOK IT:
BENJAMIN GROSVENOR performs Schumann Piano Concerto
with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Okko Kamu
Esplanade Concert Hall, 7.30 pm / Friday, 24 February 2012

Tickets available at SISTIC

KALINNIKOV Symphonies Nos.1 & 2
Malaysian Philharmonic / KEES BAKELS
BIS 1155 / ****1/2

What if the little-known Russian composer Vassily Kalinninov (1866-1901) had lived to a ripe old age instead of dying in consumptive poverty at the age of 34? Such questions may not be fully answered but what we are left with is a small body of music including two very well-crafted symphonies. The young talent had received praise from Tchaikovsky and moral support from Rachmaninov, but his overtly nationalistic symphonies filled with typically Russian themes and motifs are closer in spirit to Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov.

The melodies are catchy enough, often more memorable than those of the long-lived academic symphonist Glazunov. When the opening themes are reprised in the finale, the effect is as warm as a reunion between good old friends. Strangely for the Swedish label BIS, whose issues usually come hot off the press, this recording dates back to 2000. Only in the third year of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra’s existence, the playing under its first Music Director Dutchman Kees Bakels is polished, full of passion and involvement. With excellent sound, these readings already surpass those beloved vintage Soviet Melodiya recordings of Yevgeny Svetlanov.

Footnote: Our hearts go out to the nine Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra musicians laid off by the orchestra in the past week, a number of whom have been with the orchestra since its inception in 1998. Your invaluable contribution in invigorating the classical music in Malaysia and Singapore (the MPO has visited at least four times) will not be forgotten.

More on that injustice and ensuing discussion may be found in Norman Lebrecht's blog:

http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2012/02/high-flying-asian-orchestra-runs-into-heavy-weather.html

CHOPIN AT 200 / Singapore International Piano Festival 2010 / Review

CHOPIN AT 200

Singapore International Piano Festival 2010

Victoria Concert Hall

Wednesday to Saturday

(23-26 June 2010)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 28 June 2010.

The music of Frédéric Chopin was purportedly the uniting theme of this year’s PianoFest. However under the watch of new Artistic Director Lionel Choi, the sub-plot of showcasing the instrument’s newest glittering names took a firm hold. In a line-up with shades of the 2001 edition (21^st Century Pianists), the young and gifted illuminated a bright and promising future for the art of piano performance.

Whatever one has heard of China’s Yuja Wang in print, gossip or youtube, it is all true. At 23, her waif-like physical stature and guileless demeanor belied a thoughtful and often profound interpreter with devastating technical facility. Antithesis to the swaying and swooning Lang Lang, her ramrod straight posture and complete lack of affectation or extraneous effects rendered the range of sounds she produced all the more incredulous. 

Whether barnstorming Chopin’s Funeral March Sonata, teasing out singing lines in three Schubert-Liszt song transcriptions, or pummeling the life out of the Steinway grand in Prokofiev’s incendiary Sixth Sonata, every quantum was in service of the music. In the set of short pieces by Scriabin, her ability to negotiate between smouldering calm and outright violence within the space of seconds was uncanny and breathtaking. The full-house audience at the first evening was left wondering whether they had just witnessed the heir-apparent to legends like Horowitz or Argerich.

Six years younger was the Briton Benjamin Grosvenor, cradle-snatched for his Singapore début on Friday evening. Despite a slight awkwardness in stage deportment, everything he did suggested a close-to-formed artist rather than former child prodigy. Three of Nikolai Kapustin’s jazzy Concert Études served as delicious finger-warmers before the main course. 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. The mighty Liszt B Minor Sonata unleashed a young lion’s appetite for blood, reveling in arch virtuosity and stampeding pages, often pushed to the limit. Further years of experience might temper his approach but hopefully not quell the inner fire. In the meantime, let us all exult in Grosvenor’s youthful exuberance.

In his early forties, Polish-born Piotr Anderszewski, who first appeared at PianoFest in 1997, is a veteran by comparison. Chopin was conspicuously absent from his well-balanced programme, in its place the pervasive spirit of J.S.Bach. As always, Anderszewski’s Bach is a thing of beauty. The English Suite No.5 brought out all these qualities: mastery of counterpoint, bell-like ringing clarity and rhythmic vitality in its seven movements. 

Completely different was Pole Karol Szymanowski’s Metopes, three impressionistic visions of Grecian maidens of mythology, fair and foul. An antidote to Ravel’s Ondine, these were seductive in a hypnotic and oblique manner, abetted by Anderszewski’s sensitive, tactile pianism that ranged from fleeting whispers to an orgiastic frenzy. 

Schumann’s Six Canonic Studies (Op.56) and Beethoven’s penultimate A flat major Sonata (Op.110) completed the picture, music hewn from common inspirations and carved out with the most crystalline of timbres. Never a harsh sound to be heard, Anderszewski turned sobbing lament in the sonata’s 3rd movement aria into a victory of hope and affirmation. It was this human and anti-virtuosic quality that made this recital the most satisfying of all. The next edition of Asia’s premier piano festival cannot come soon enough.