A different kind of Grosvenor at Wigmore Hall on Sunday night.
Epic theatre. Cathedral-like Bach as though Stokowski had written the piano arrangement. A similarly fearless and robust performance of Schumann’s Fantasie in C had me looking up at the ceiling utterly gripped by every twist and turn, the conclusion preparing us for the interval with a delicious musical cliffhanger.
After, an eye-poppingly tender, playful, sometimes even flirty, Ravel.
To conclude, a similarly enthralling Prokofiev Piano Sonata No. 7. The dystopian final movement is a nail-biting cheer-inducing conclusion.
That an artist is able to pull together a programme that works and execute is not something we should take for granted. I loved Old Grosvenor. I’m loving The New Grosvenor even more.
Expect repeat epicness when Benjamin Grosvenor appears at the BBC Proms on Sunday 16 July at 11am in a programme featuring Liszt, Debussy and Ravel.
Grosvenor also performs Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto with John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London at the BBC Proms on Sunday 6 August.
