Instrumental
Benjamin Grosvenor reveals a fine imagination, says Rebecca Franks
HOMAGES
Works by Bach-busoni, Mendelssohn, Franck, Chopin, Liszt; (digital edition only: Ravel) Benjamin Grosvenor (piano)
Decca 483 0255 74:43 mins
This third recital album from Benjamin Grosvenor is every bit as pianistically brilliant as its precedents, showing off his fluid virtuosity, musical sensitivity and fearless approach. Homages is the title but the 24-year-old pianist hasn’t taken the theme too literally. In fact, this is as much a homage to his great pianist predecessors as a showcase of composers paying tribute to one another. Best not
Franck’s Prélude, Choral and Fugue is ineffably beautiful
worry about semantics and simply revel in the imaginative programme.
The Busoni transcription of Bach’s solo violin Chaconne in D minor opens the disc. Grosvenor doesn’t evoke the soundworld of the original, instead this work emerges as a pianistic tour de force, even hinting at the organ in its resonant bass notes, chunky chords and liberal sustaining pedal.
Bach looms large, too, in the Franck and Mendelssohn that follow. Grosvenor’s eloquent approach pays dividends in the more Bachian passages of Mendelssohn’s E minor Prelude and Fugue, while he takes the F minor Fugue at a breathtaking pace. The minorkey mood culminates in Franck’s Prélude, Choral et Fugue, its central Chorale played with ineffable beauty and religious reverence.
The mood changes from dark to light for the second half. Chopin’s Barcarolle is dispatched with passion, while Liszt’s
Venezia e Napoli, from Les années de pèlerinage, features magical crystalline playing and delicately drawn colours and atmosphere.
All that is already quite a feast, but if you stream or download the digital version of the album, you’ll get a bonus of Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin in a characterful performance. It’s all recorded in fairly resonant but good sound.