Arts preview: Benjamin Grosvenor tackles the composer's piano concerto
Sam Olluver
Last year was a big one for anniversaries marking the centenaries of composers, including Wagner, Verdi and Britten. Although the New Year has already turned, there's an attractive line-up for this year's Hong Kong Arts Festival. The Hong Kong Sinfonietta's concert on February 28 has as its centrepiece Britten's Piano Concerto, featuring the outstanding young British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor.
Yip Wing-sie, the Sinfonietta's music director, is excited about the prospect of working with the acclaimed 21 year-old. "I really enjoyed the fabulous performance he gave of the Britten concerto at the BBC Proms," she says, referring to the 2011 event that helped bring Grosvenor to international prominence.
"Benjamin Grosvenor is now one of the most sought-after pianists on the music scene, so we are naturally delighted that he will be performing with us for his Hong Kong debut."
When Grosvenor stepped onto the stage at London's Royal Albert Hall to perform the concerto in 2011, he was literally following in the footsteps of the composer; Britten himself gave the first performance in the same venue at a Proms concert in 1938. This led Grosvenor to dutifully research both the event and the work, which stands as a one-off in Britten's catalogue.
"There is little else in his output in a similar vein, as he later turned his pianistic focus to accompanying," Grosvenor says, recalling that, during the premiere, "Britten's shirt button flew off into the audience."
People hearing the work for the first time are always pleasantly surprised by its colour, energy and accessibility. It is now one of his favourite concertos. Grosvenor has toured the piece extensively and confirms that it is always well received.
"It is a youthful, exuberant piece, with inventive and virtuosic piano writing," the Decca Classics recording artist says, describing how the work's four movements turn between vitality, whisky-and-cigar moments, and solemnity, before ending with a comic parody of a march.
"There is something about the pomposity of the first theme, with its irreverent interjecting chords, that should elicit a smile from the listeners. It's filled with blisteringly virtuosic writing for the piano that brings the concerto to an exciting close," Grosvenor says.
Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall, 5 Edinburgh Place, Central, February 28, 8pm, HK$150-HK$380 Urbtix. Inquiries: 2836 3336
