The pianist Benjamin Grosvenor - works by Frederic Chopin - Music Box, June 2nd, 2025

An album launched on May 23rd, premieres today on Radio România Muzical, including for the first time repertoire signed by Frederic Chopin, performed by the renowned British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, who does not indulge in excess in his versions.

In this new Chopin album of Benjamin Grosvenor, in the spotlight, there are Sonatas No. 2 and 3 by Frederic Chopin, recorded in September 2024 at Lady Stringer Studio, a new recording studio belonging to Garsington Opera, together with Ballad No. 1, Berceuse we just listened to, and 2 Nocturnes Op. 55.

Benjamin Grosvenor, today 32 years old, has a fulminant career and is known as the best representative British pianist nowadays. At 17 years old, he was featured in the BBC New Generation Artist project, which led to his appearance on the opening concert stage for the BBC Proms Festival in 2011, becoming the youngest artist to ever perform at the famous London festival's debut. 2011 is also the year when Benjamin Grosvenor started collaborating with the British record label Decca - up to the present moment, Benjamin Grosvenor has signed 9 productions for this record label: 6 recital programmes and 3 concert works. In 2020, the album containing the two concertos for piano and orchestra by Frederic Chopin was released, which enjoyed great success, receiving the Gramophone Award in the concert category for 2020 and the Diapason d'or. Critics noted the pianist's extraordinary touch, his versions that were more internalized than exuberant, and his wide palette of colors.

There are also praises that can be given to Benjamin Grosvenor's proposed version of Frederic Chopin's Sonata No. 2, with its famous slow movement, the Funeral March. In fact, it is precisely Grosvenor's more restrained style that gives weight to this funeral march, without any excess that can easily fall into kitsch and bad taste. Grosvenor's proposed Chopin is poetry that moves, without the intoxication of words.

Harriet Smith, the columnist from the Gramophone, wrote about the newest disc signed by Benjamin Grosvenor, launched on May 23rd, in very elogistic terms: "[it] is one of Grosvenor's best disc and includes some of the best disc versions of the Sonats No. 2 nd 3 by Chopin. It's a revelatory experience. In Sonata No. 3, we have ths feeling that the pianist has all the time in the world", I'll add, that he has all the time in the world to live through music, a privilege that few of us, even among musicians, still have today. There is little glamour, but it is full of intense feeling, respect for the score and for the meaning of art in general, in this wonderful recording of Sonata No. 3 by Frederic Chopin, performed by Benjamin Grosvenor.