Homages

The highlight from Grosvenor's Homages disc is unquestionably the Liszt works, which ultimately only whet one's aural appetite for more Liszt. Everything else is unfailingly superb.

Outstanding! Thrilling!

Amazing interpretations from an important young pianist who will define the genius art of his generation. This album has me rethink and fall in love with this lovely piano literature all over again !

From the profusion of top-rate pianists these days how does one spot a giant? What did the trick for me this time was the Bach-Busoni Chaconne that occurs first in this recital. There was an impression of sheer bigness in this player’s personality as it came across, and the impression recalled Michelangeli, whose playing of this work has been my benchmark for every performance of it that I have heard since. Digging into my LP collection I extracted Michelangeli’s EMI Discoteca Classica, played the two back-to-back and, sure enough, there was not a world of difference. Bigness is not just a matter of volume either. The left-hand octaves near the start have terrific power without loss of tone-quality, but the quiet and slow variations round about the #20 mark have a hushed sense of awe that also rivals the great man’s account.That made a good start, and if I say that it is the best thing in this recital that still leaves room for other kinds of excellence. There are two prelude/fugue numbers by Mendelssohn next, the second being the less familiar f minor. Grosvenor takes the fugue’s ‘allegro con fuoco’ marking literally, making it an exciting gift to the gallery without musical penalty, as Mendelssohn’s fugues are only fugues by some extension of the term. The better-known e minor is not such a simple case. In the fugue Grosvenor is slower than Perahia but faster than Serkin, and I found the comparison instructive. Perahia goes some way towards ‘lightening’ the fugue, and as between his account and Grosvenor’s I don’t find a lot to choose. Serkin often has a way of spoiling the party when everything had seemed fine elsewhere, and he’s at it again here. His big-scale reading has the characteristic of weight without heaviness, and his sculpted clarity puts him in a special category.There is something else that I am lukewarm about, and it is the handling of the accompaniment in the prelude to the f minor. Sure, the melody has to stand out clearly, but the accompaniment can sound vague, and I find some danger of that here, (and also in Franck’s Prelude in the next item.) Some way has to be found for keeping it characterful or the piece as a whole is diminished, and in case anyone is interested I would refer them to Chopin’s B flat minor scherzo, where Horowitz and Michelangeli take diametrically opposite approaches in their treatment of the cantabile theme, each with entire success in my opinion.Give or take my slight reservations regarding the Prelude, I was very taken with this rendering of Franck’s Prelude Choral and Fugue. There is some really impressive (and I think very Franckian) religioso playing in the Choral, and real majesty in the Fugue, with a very convincing sense throughout of the piano being given organ-like sonorities.I had great hopes for my beloved Chopin Barcarolle at the hands of such a distinguished interpreter, but here I am ever so slightly disappointed, and the reason why is, as so often, that I know another account that is just that crucial bit better. It must be on cd by now I suppose, but the LP (Chopin 2 in the silver-grey RCA Horowitz collection) is really very well recorded and does full justice to a performance that is as near absolute perfection as any I know. There has to be a fair amount of latitude in the rubato and tempo-variation, just as the loud/soft dynamics call for the finest judgment. Grosvenor has plenty of all that, as you might expect, but...well, you get the idea. There is something else too, I literally never see the point made, and if it comes across as pedantry I maintain stoutly that it is nothing of the kind. The point is this: Chopin’s music is pure abstract, and one aspect of that matter is that practically every one of his compositions is in part a technical etude. The Barcarolle is in great part a study in right-hand trills; Horowitz realises this, and his trills are a thing of exquisite beauty. I was also surprised to see that in the leaflet Benjamin Grosvenor seems to go along with some idea of the Barcarolle as Venetian. ‘Barcarolle’ only means ‘boat-song’, and it is as long ago as The Record Guide in the 50’s (if not earlier, I guess) that the perfectly sensible and obvious point was made that this big-scale and varied Barcarolle, (without of course being programmatic), seemed to belong on the wide ocean rather than on the waters of the Rialto.True to his vocation as a virtuoso, Benjamin Grosvenor finishes with three contrasted Liszt items, storming a few barns with his final Tarantella. He’s got it, if I am any judge – he’s got it all. I could recommend this disc for every performance on it, and I am pained to learn that some Ravel has unaccountably been excised. However even without Ravel I recommend this recital for displaying the various gifts and insights of this new phenomenon. He has already passed his 25th birthday, so he needs to be considered alongside any of his great forebears. If he does not yet quite surpass Michelangeli, Horowitz and Serkin at their very best, he may yet do that within my remaining lifetime, and I look forward to following his journey.

It has been a while since I last encountered this level of musicianship and pianism in one person, at least not since Jeremy Denk and Igor Levit. There are many other pianists I admire but few, very few, that achieve such organic naturality and filigree. I am once more reminded of the aristocratic Michelangeli, artistry I never expected to hear again in a pianist. The engineering is beyond reproach achieving a warmth and clarity unheard of in recent recordings of solo piano. Mind you, warmth and clarity are amply supplied by the pianist himself and his chosen instrument. If Album of the Year in the solo piano category has not yet been selected by the people "entrusted" to make these decisions, this is it, folks. Splendid and brilliant pianism left to right, top to bottom.

Others have commented sufficiently on the majority of this program. So I'll add my comment- which is a big beef with Decca Records.CD Buyers: be aware the CD version of this album omits the Ravel Tombeau de Couperin. It is included ONLY on the MP3/Spotify versions. The CD contains 12 tracks; the MP3 has 18. I'm very disappointed with Decca. If they don't want to make CDs anymore, then they should stop producing them, rather than short-changing their few remaining CD buyers. Decca - guess what? We'll stop buying your CDs altogether; I certainly will not buy this one. And Mr. Grosvenor - if you want to sell any records, you should put a stop to this kind of nonsense.