Benjamin Grosvenor : Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Gershwin.

Piano International (Jan, 2013)
This is Benjamin Grosvenor’s first concerto disc. The programming is exemplary, with each major piece followed by an intriguing, brief encore; in two cases, transcriptions add another musical voice to the mix. Grosvenor’s way with Saint-Saens’s Second Piano Concerto is most affecting, capturing not only its fantasy but also its Bachian inspiration. The major competition here comes from Stephen Hough (Hyperion), and if Grosvenor does not quite match Hough’s lightness of touch in the central Allegro scherzando, he certainly gives him a run for his money in the breezy finale, where fleet fingerwork and fizzing trills lift Grosvenor’s performance to another level. The filigree of Godowsky’s Swan transcription takes the …