Judging from the near-capacity audience for his recital, and the enthusiastic reception for it, Benjamin Grosvenor is now firmly established as one of Wigmore Hall’s favourites. His latest programme – works by Busoni, Schumann, Ravel and Prokofiev – contained none of the virtuoso showpieces that used to be such a regular feature of his recitals, though there were still plenty of technical challenges of the kind that he takes in his stride.
Le Tombeau de Couperin was perhaps the nearest thing to purely decorative music in the selection, though Grosvenor’s take on Ravel’s piano music is never as pastel-coloured and exquisite as it’s sometimes presented, but something much more sinewy and direct, even in these exercises in nostalgia. He would return to Ravel for his encore, too, with Jeux d’Eau, in a performance that owed as much to Liszt as it did to any notion of musical impressionism.
