Meet Benjamin Grosvenor
Ahead of his performance of Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto, we spoke to Benjamin Grosvenor about his love for Chopin’s music and what it means to him.
You started playing the piano at a young age. When did you first get to know Chopin’s music, and his Piano Concertos in particular?
I heard these two pieces for the first time when I was about 10. It was a recording by Evgeny Kissin of the two concertos that he made when he was only 12. I think my mother gave it to me because she thought that I would identify strongly with that, with someone of the same age playing this amazing music. I already had a great love for Chopin. He was my first love at the piano, and so it was natural that I would eventually come to these pieces.
What makes Chopin’s music special for you?
What is so touching about Chopin’s music is its intimacy. It’s that personal, candle-lit quality that his music has. Some of the most profound things in Chopin’s music are said in a whisper. It’s
music that glows in a very intimate and personal way. He wrote so well for the piano – he devoted his life to it, essentially. He just understood the instrument perfectly.
You’ve been performing both of Chopin’s Piano Concertos with the Philharmonia. Can you tell us a little more about these pieces and your relationship with them?
These are glorious works filled with such inventiveness, and they have so much of Chopin – and what he was to become – in them. They have gorgeous slow movements. They’re filled with inventive melodic material and the development of that. The last movements of both of these concertos are Polish dances, but they have very different feels. Both of these last movements are virtuosic, essentially, but the kind of virtuosity is different. In the Second Concerto it’s this kind of suave, elegant virtuosity. And both are filled with a lot of humour! Even though I’ve been playing them since I was 14, there are always new challenges that you have to come to afresh.
Watch the full interview and hear more from Benjamin on our YouTube channel.
“What is so touching about Chopin’s music is its intimacy – that personal, candle-lit quality. Some of the most profound things in Chopin’s music are said in a whisper.”
