![]() ![]() In contrast to the young Korean whirlwind H J Lim – who recently recorded all Beethoven's 32 sonatas in a year – Grosvenor makes it a year's project to master just one, but there's no comparison between the results. ![]() He also listens fanatically to recordings laid down by the great pianists of the past, most notably by that German Beethovenian Wilhelm Kempff, whose amalgam of classical restraint and emotional intensity represents the ideal Grosvenor is striving for. He tries not to read the articles now proliferating about him, and he's not a great reader of his reviews, but that's partly because he records his own performances and listens back with a hyper-critical ear. It's important for audiences to feel close to performers." But my mother chose the red shirt I wore for this year's Prom – I'm not big on clothes, so it's good to have a feminine input, and you don't want to seem old-fashioned. I'm just constantly trying to improve." Known for dressing more casually than the average concert pianist, he represents the young, popular face of classical music: does he feel he's being marketed as a commodity? "In a way, I suppose. It's great to have your work recognised, but it doesn't affect the way I think about myself. ![]() "ĭoes he enjoy his fame? A pause, a laugh: "Well, I prefer playing the piano. When I was 14 I found myself thinking that, in an affluent society, there was no real reason to eat meat – the idea that something died and I was eating it just for pleasure. Is that a stand on principle? "Yes, but also by inclination. He loves tours, where one of the very few drawbacks can be his requirement for a vegetarian menu. It's an honourable tradition that classical soloists should travel with a family entourage –Maxim Vengerov and Evgeny Kissin did so until well into their thirties – but, as Grosvenor points out, when you're giving 15 recitals in 17 days, as he recently did in Germany, such assistance is vital. "We're a very close-knit family," observes this youngest of five brothers until a year ago, he shared a bedroom with Jonathan, who often comes on tour with him, the pair always being chauffeured by their mother. Because Jonathan has Down's Syndrome and is partially sighted, Benjamin has always acted as his protector. Is he glad that he had an ordinary state education – prior to being home-schooled from the age of 14 – rather than a specialist musical one? He replies that being a boarder at the Yehudi Menuhin School, which he looked at but decided against, would have disrupted his relationship with his elder brother Jonathan. Meanwhile Grosvenor's piano-teacher mother also knew how to nurture his talent. After he was picked up at 13 by an agent who quickly lost interest, they moved him to another who understood the dangers of early overexposure. Last year, he became both the first British pianist in nearly six decades to be signed up by Decca, and also the youngest-ever soloist to appear on the opening night of the Proms.īut although he spent his teens giving concerts for local music societies in Essex and beyond, his parents and piano tutor Christopher Elton wisely kept him out of the limelight (pianist Freddy Kempf, another young BBC winner, was almost destroyed by such premature fame). Ever since he won the piano section of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition at the age of 12 he has been singled out for stardom, making his debut at the Royal Albert Hall and at New York's Carnegie Hall a year later. How many honours and prizes can you load on a 20-year-old pianist? For Benjamin Grosvenor, who last month carried off a Classical Brit and two Gramophone awards in the same week, the question is not academic. ![]()
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