Portrait of a Young Musician

I had missed Benjamin Grosvenor’s last two appearances in Vancouver, and I was determined not to miss his recital yesterday. I am happy to say that I enjoyed the performance thoroughly.

It is an inspired idea to begin a recital with Schumann’s Arabeske, Op. 18. This miniature masterpiece from the composer’s “piano years”, where he composed some of his greatest works for the instrument, is a real test of a pianist’s musicality and the fluidity of his or her playing. Grosvenor passed both challenges with flying colours. Moreover, Grosvenor played the work with beautiful subtlety, simplicity and flexibility - a souplesse - as well as a hushed quality. I also really appreciated his timing of the fermata in between sections. The coda (Zum Schluss) had an incredible feeling of intimacy and delicacy.

Mozart’s Sonata in B-flat major, K. 333 is, I feel, one of the composer’s greatest of the genre. Grosvenor has a luminous quality in his Mozart playing, as if every note is one of a long string of precious pearls, as well as a wonderful attention to details in the left hand. There is a beguiling lightness in his playing of the many scale runs, and lightness in the tail ends of the phrases. The brief G minor theme at m. 64 of the third movement was particularly beautifully played. I loved his little interjections in the left hand at mm. 156 to 158, where I could almost see Figaro lurking in the background. The young pianist also conjured up some bold colours in the brief cadenza towards the end of the movement.

Yes, it is possible to bring freshness and originality to Beethoven’s Sonata in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2, the so-called Moonlight sonata, as Grosvenor did yesterday afternoon. I agreed with his tempo choice, respecting Beethoven’s alla breve indication – as well as his tempo relationship between the movements. There was a sense of nobility and elegance in his playing of the all-too-familiar opening movement. In both the first and second movements, there was beautiful voicing of the chords. His effective pedaling in the brief second movement created some lovely overtones, especially in the Trio section. In the stormy third movement, there was a feeling of control and clarity in the midst of the incredible drama. He also never lost the beauty of the sound in the many sf chords, without losing their explosive quality.

Grosvenor opened the second half of his programme with Scriabin’s Sonata No. 2 in G-sharp minor, Op. 19 (Sonata-Fantasy). The pianist managed to inject a logic and structure to the rather loosely constructed, albeit beautiful, first movement which, under the wrong hands, could impart a feeling of meandering. His playing of the Chopin-like (Chopin on steroids though!) opening and closing sections made me want to hear more of his Chopin playing. In this as well as the second movement, he drew upon his considerable tonal palette and his awesome pianistic resources – as he did for all the works in this second half.

I imagine that Grosvenor must be working his way through Enrique Granados’ monumental Goyescas, for he also included pieces from the cycle, I think, in his last recital here. It is very wise for him to add one or two works from the set every year, because these are certainly pieces that take time to make one’s own. I thought that his playing of the opening of Los Requiebros was very stylish, capturing the obvious Spanish inflections of especially the left hand. Although pianistically impeccable, I did feel that the young artist is still finding his way towards interpreting this complex work. I did not feel that he has arrived at an overall concept of the entire work. In El Fandango de Candil, the attacks in the opening chords could be sharper; overall, the Spanish flavour, or “taste”, is somewhat lacking. I would say again, though, that he rose well above the many daunting pianistic challenges from first note to last. In time, I am certain that he will make these pieces his own.

The pianist ended his programme with Franz Liszt’s Spanish Rhapsody. I thought that his interpretation of the work has given us every ounce of music that the work contains. His timing was impeccable, and he (thankfully) did not fall into the trap of pounding the instrument in the many dramatic passages, always retaining his beautiful piano sound. There was always a feeling of control, that there is energy yet to be harnessed – rare qualities in so young a musician.

All in all, a beautifully put together and very satisfying recital, giving us a glimpse into many facets of this incredibly talented and musical artist. It is obvious that the sky is the limit for this young man, and we wait to witness the next chapter of his artistic journey.

Patrick May

May 8, 2017

New Discovery in the New Year

My first musical discovery in 2014 is a live recording from 2011 of Cuban pianist Jorge Luis Prats. Not only was I unfamiliar with Mr. Prats’s artistry, much of the repertoire he presents in his recital are new discoveries for me.

Jorge Luis Prats won the prestigious Long-Thibaud competition in 1977, a win that should have introduced him to the musical world in the most spectacular way. Because Prats is Cuban, his career became the victim of cold war politics, limiting his performances to (then) Soviet-bloc countries as well as in Mexico, Cuba, and South America. The present recording, made in the beautiful concert hall in Zaragoza, Spain, marks his first major performance in Europe for many years. Listening to this recording prompted the question of why we had to wait so long to hear this major artist. Is this not another reminder that talent is often the last and least of the factors in the “making” of a musical career?

Prats opened his recital with five of Granados’s monumental piano cycle, Goyescas – the pianist left out the Epilogo, but inserted between the fourth and fifth pieces another Granados work, El pelele. Goyescas was of course the composer’s hommage to the great Spanish painter. Granados loved the works of Goya, “for his models, quarrels, his loves and flatteries; those pink and white cheeks against lace and black velvet, those tight-waisted bodies, hands of jasmine and mother-of-pearl resting on jet trinkets. All of these things dazzled and possessed me.”

Just as the works of Goya dazzled Granados, listeners have long been dazzled and moved by Granados’s richly coloured score ever since its premiere in 1914, with its dense and multi-layered piano writing, and its many beguiling melodies. The thickness of the pianistic texture, as well as the almost insurmountable pianistic challenges, presents difficulties for any pianist attempting this music. For me, the greatest challenge lies in presenting this music idiomatically, and with élan and style. Prats’s playing towers above the many challenges presented in the score, and he plays this music as if he was born for it. The pianist brings out the character of every work in the set - the suaveness and gracefulness of the opening Los Requiebros, the quasi-impressionistic Coloquio en la Reja, the high-spirited El Fandango de Candil, the melancholic and tender Quejas Ó La Maya Y El Ruiseñor, for me the emotional core of the entire set, and the death-haunted El Amor Y La Muerte – and highlight for us the beauty inherent in every one of the unique pieces in Granados giant canvas. These are performances that give us not only visceral excitement, which many pianists today are capable of, but moments of great depth, expressiveness, emotion and tenderness. This is piano playing that moves.

I only wonder why the pianist added El pelele in between Quejas Ó La Maya Y El Ruiseñor and El Amor Y La Muerte. For me, the character of El pelele does not match the character of the rest of the pieces in the set. Moreover, there is a strong thematic connection between Quejas Ó La Maya Y El Ruiseñor and El Amor Y La Muerte, as well as an emotional connection between the two works, a connection that is broken by the insertion of an extraneous work in between.

None of the other works in this recital, from Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Bachiana brasileira No. 4, to the three encores that followed, cast any doubts in my mind that Jorge Luis Prats is a stupendous pianist, and a major artist. In the three encores, the pianist rewards the audience with Carlos Fariñas’s Alta Gracia, Ignacio Cervantes salon-like Danzas cubanas, and Ernesto Lecuona’s famous Malagueña. These are music of a lighter vein, which in many ways augments the challenge for the artist, who must play this music not only convincingly, but also with taste. Prats plays this music with great humour, conviction, taste, and style.

I hope that this beautifully recorded and engineered recording from Decca will serve to raise the consciousness of Jorge Luis Prats in the minds of music lovers. There is no reason why an artist of this caliber should not become a household name in pianistic circles. He certainly deserves to be.