Benjamin Grosvenor has great firepower in his Philadelphia recital. Nuance, less so.
At the Kimmel, the British pianist triumphed in one spectacularly difficult work.
The virtuosity is a given. So what did Benjamin Grosvenor say with all of that firepower Tuesday night at the Kimmel Center?
It hardly seems possible, but the British pianist’s preternaturally developed technique was even more impressive this visit than in his Philadelphia recital debut in 2017. Surely the repertoire wasn’t chosen merely to flaunt, but so great was the flood and fury of notes during the program that the encore, when it arrived, felt like a much-needed sedative: Ginastera’s gently rocking “Danza de la moza donosa” from his Danzas Argentinas.
It was Ravel’s La valse that stirred this Philadelphia Chamber Music Society audience in the Perelman Theater to demand an encore. It’s the piece itself, for any pianist who can get through it, that whips up the atmosphere. Grosvenor more than got through it. It was lovely the way the pianist arrived at the quiet waltz melody about two minutes in. And this was a performance built for daring. The pianist gathered intensity and speed until the convulsive end.
But he often bypassed Ravel’s opportunities for nuance — both in color and expressivity — in favor of showiness, and that quality spilled over elsewhere. The three movements of Albéniz’s Iberia, Book I make for a satisfying triptych with plenty of emotional range, but Grosvenor lacked the kind of full freedom in the opening “Evocación” that gives the music its magic. He wasn’t quite starchy, though he often made you aware of bar lines and written note durations more than you wanted to be. No Alicia de Larrocha is he.
Schumann’s Kreisleriana, Op. 16 presented the pianist with a series of character sketches, several of which he realized effectively. He brought great detail to the sixth (the very slow one), where he treated different registers with specific instrumental colors — a contrabassoon sound here, a clarinet there.
But if there was one point on the program where performer and piece seemed made for each other it was in Franck’s Prelude, Choral et Fugue, FWV. 21. It’s a dense, complex work of mists and cloudy grays, but Grosvenor didn’t let it become too watery. He heard the Lisztian qualities and made them clear, and achieved a marvelously round sound in the recurring bell peals. It’s a technically demanding piece and one that benefits from emotional complexity. Here was music that emerged in idealized form.
Next in the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society’s piano recital series: Yefim Bronfman performs May 10 at the Perelman Theater. The concert is currently sold out, but it pays to keep checking for availability. pcmsconcerts.org, 215-569-8080.