Liszt

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Grosvenor conjures a brand of full and rounded keyboard sonority different from that of many of his contemporaries, and recalls the giants of an earlier generation (Busoni, for instance, or... — BBC Music Magazine, April 2021, 5 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 4 out of 5 stars (Recording) More…

Release Date: 19th Feb 2021
Catalogue No: 4851450
Label: Decca
Length: 83 minutes

Gramophone Magazine

March 2021

Editor's Choice
Presto Editor's Choice

February 2021
Gramophone Awards

2021

Shortlisted - Piano
International Classical Music Awards

2022

Nominated - Solo Instrument

Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor, S178

Work length31:49

$4.40

$6.00

$8.20

Benjamin Grosvenor (piano)
Recorded: 2020-10-22
Recording Venue: Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

Lento assai - Allegro energico - Grandioso - Recitativo

Track length12:30

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Andante sostenuto -

Track length7:58

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Allegro energico

Track length7:23

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Andante sostenuto - Lento assai

Track length3:58

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Liszt: Berceuse S174 (first version)

Work length9:36

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Benjamin Grosvenor (piano)
Recorded: 2020-10-22
Recording Venue: Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

Excerpt, Liszt: Années de pèlerinage, 2ème année, Italie (7 pieces), S. 161

Work length20:25

$3.30

$4.50

$6.15

Benjamin Grosvenor (piano)
Recorded: 2020-10-22
Recording Venue: Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

4. Sonetto 47 del Petrarca

Track length6:02

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

5. Sonetto 104 del Petrarca

Track length7:01

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

6. Sonetto 123 del Petrarca

Track length7:22

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Liszt: Réminiscences de Norma, S394

Work length16:32

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Benjamin Grosvenor (piano)
Recorded: 2020-10-22
Recording Venue: Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

Liszt: Ave Maria (No. 12 from Zwölf Lieder von Franz Schubert, S558)

Work length5:28

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Benjamin Grosvenor (piano)
Recorded: 2020-10-22
Recording Venue: Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

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About

Hot on the heels of his 2020 Diapason d’Or and Gramophone Award triumphs, British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor presents his first album in a renewed exclusive partnership with Decca Classics.

The album, Liszt, is released on 19 th February 2021, signifying Grosvenor’s most substantial solo recording to date, centred around the works of the Romantic piano virtuoso and composer, Franz Liszt. The release marks Benjamin’s sixth album on Decca Classics, following the award-winning Chopin Piano Concertos in 2020.

Grosvenor says, “Decca Classics has been my recording home for the last decade, and I’m pleased that we are continuing our partnership with this new release. The music of Liszt has been central to my repertoire since I was introduced to it as a child, by my grandfather. I wanted with this recording to show the composer in his different aspects, including some of his original compositions, but also displaying the extraordinarily re-creative abilities he showed in his transcriptions.”

Dominic Fyfe, Decca Classics’ Label Director, adds, “I am delighted that Benjamin will start a new chapter with Decca Classics. Decca has been a lifelong home to the legacies of such legendary pianists as Clifford Curzon, Julius Katchen, Vladimir Ashkenazy and more recently Nelson Freire. Benjamin richly deserves his place in such company. He builds on a distinguished discography: both his debut and most recent albums garnered Gramophone awards as well as numerous international honours. His new Liszt recital perfectly captures his compelling pianism and flair for imaginative programming.”

The centrepiece to the new album, Liszt’s Sonata in B minor, is widely regarded as the composer’s ultimate masterwork and milestone of the Romantic piano repertory. The record also features three remarkable Petrarch Sonnets, among the most beloved of Liszt’s works, and his dazzling fantasy on Bellini’s ‘Norma’ in which the composer explored virtually all the dramatic capabilities of the instrument in his time. Liszt closes with the charming encore ‘Ave Maria’, Liszt’s popular transcription of Schubert’s familiar work.

Winner of the Keyboard Final of the 2004 BBC Young Musician Competition at the age of eleven, Benjamin Grosvenor is now an internationally regarded pianist performing with esteemed conductors and orchestras across the world. A BBC New Generation Artist from 2010-2012, Benjamin has performed at the BBC Proms on a number of occasions and in 2015 starred at the Last Night.

In 2011 Benjamin signed exclusively to Decca Classics, becoming the youngest British musician ever – and the first British pianist in almost 60 years – to sign to the label. His recordings have received numerous awards and in October 2016 he was announced as the inaugural recipient of the Ronny and Lawrence Ackman Classical Piano Prize at the New York Philharmonic. Playing since the age of six, Benjamin graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 2012 with the ‘Queen’s Commendation for Excellence’.

Reviews

April 2021

Grosvenor conjures a brand of full and rounded keyboard sonority different from that of many of his contemporaries, and recalls the giants of an earlier generation (Busoni, for instance, or Josef Lhévinne)…[his] interpretations seem to take us close to the essence of the music itself, and to the legendary playing style it sprang from.

July/August 2021

[Sonata] a dazzling, bold, unfettered reading that is exciting from first to last…The most daunting technical demand is overcome as if effortlessly, and he spins a refined lyric line without affectation. The music world is awash in phenomenal keyboard talent right now, and Grosvenor has established himself firmly among the elite.

March 2021

An ideal Liszt Sonata performance requires transcendental virtuosity, prodigious colouristic resources, a sense of drama and narrative flow and a gift for fusing both architecture and passion. Benjamin Grosvenor’s interpretation embodies these qualities and then some...One may miss Arrau’s golden-toned largesse or the gaunter classicism of Fleisher, Curzon and Brendel, yet Grosvenor’s Liszt Sonata clearly belongs in such company.

March 2021

[Sonata] His reading takes real interpretative risks, throwing out fragments separated by silence, as it should be. The slow movement has the inexorable quality of molten lava, while the fugato is crisp as can be. This is visceral and exciting playing. The Berceuse (the more ornamented second version) offers perfect post-sonata balm.

February 2021

The sheer vaulting athleticism with which Grosvenor tackles the opening of the mighty Sonata certainly stops you in your tracks, but it’s soul rather than muscle which is the defining characteristic of this breathtakingly beautiful Liszt recital from the young British pianist. The three Petrarch sonnets, Berceuse and Ave Maria really sing, and he’s fully alive to the drama of the Réminiscences de Norma - the Druids’ battle-cries could scarcely sound more electrifying in the opera-house than they do here.

Liszt

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