These were the days when BBC TV still had some credibilty regarding the arts. The wonderful performances by the young Benjamin Grosvenor would only rate a few minutes of air time now in 2024. We have token extracts of musicians while tennis and soccer are on for hours plus highlights and discussions just to make sure we all get it. Snooker and even darts- DARTS for Christs sake get more coverage. Understand, I love the BBC and hate the voices that do not recognise its worth but it is an uphill struggle at times. On a positive note is so nice to look back at the BBC Young Musician and piano virtuoso Benjamin Grosvenor.
You shouldn’t be so intent on watching the pianist. I suggest listening to the music they make. Daniil Trifonov makes many weird faces in performance, but his musicianship is so fine. I don’t discredit him for emoting at the piano. Same with Sokolov sometimes. Yes you may just be “irritated” because it makes you uncomfortable...
You should hear him now. I just heard him in the front row at Lincoln Center, playing Beethoven Third with the New York Philharmonic. It was one of the greatest concerto performances I've ever heard in my entire life. Great audience response too. He gave every last note full attention, and played with great musicianship and colossal virtuosity. Never even smudged in the slightest. I was 8 feet from his hands, and he was in utter command.
Watching young Mr. Grosvenor can only affirm a believe in divine providence. Oh, I know how hard he worked, but the sheer innate ability, at such a tender age, is so special. Simply wonderful and amazing.
Simply Amazing! and he continues to amaze the public attending each of his concerts. I was super impressed when I attended his concert with Houston Symphony, but for me was Benjamin Grosvenor unforgettable concerto performance attending 2023 BBC Proms at Royale Albert Hall in London. Amazing talent & one of the greatest young pianists of our times. Many of his fans are now looking forward to his concert at 2023 Chopin & Europe International music festival in Warsaw, PL. His hands are magic.
Great, wonderful, Benjamin Grosvenor has already as child so much in his Soul !!!! THANKSFULLY to him and to Maurice RAVEL inspiring him here too !!!💗💗
I've heard pretty much all the youtube videos of this concert. Ben at the age of 12 plays the 2nd movement like no one. Perfect balance, poetic, emotional, with the peaceful mind of a young boy with an old soul. ..all the acomplished pianists tend to get too emotional and over express , emphasize too much this beautiful addagio asai. To me this is the perfect version, the purest one.. simply divine
wow. someone suggested benjamin's recording of gaspard de la nuit. mmm...so good. ended up here. what a great performance. and his smile at the finish...kinda perfect. thanks for sharing this!
Already a wonderful artist even at this tender age. Close your eyes and just listen. It is hard to believe that someone so young could actually perform and control the piano part of this difficult concerto.
THE RAVEL PIECE IS ENCHANTING AND SEEING A 12 YEAR PLAYING SO MASTERFULLY IS UNCANNY. HE WILL BE PLAYING IN CHICAGO IN FEBRUARY, 2017 AND I'M THRILLED TO HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO SEE THIS NOW 24 ENGLISH LAD'S PROGRESS. SURE TO BE A WINNER!
he has played a recital every year here in Miami for about 5 years now and to watch him grow as a pianist over the years has been inspiring - he returns again on 3/5/19 to enchant us
L'ayant entendu dans Liszt ce matin, je découvre avec stupéfaction ce génie du piano...incroyable ! A seulement 12 ans, retenir ce difficile concerto, par coeur, quel génie ! quel gamin incroyable ! et quelle simplicité dans le mouvement lent, aussi !
Such amazing concentration! Notice how he cites the 2nd movement as the most difficult because of its poetry. He really plays the piano with his brain.
The second movement is also notoriously difficult to memorize--though not, perhaps, for him. I noticed that he changed the ascending chromatic scale in the final bars of the 3rd movement, to fit his child-size hands.
@@djmotise It never repeats itself, the opening melody is never once the same. It can be a challenge to memorise but for a professional I'm sure it's not a huge deal.
@@jabarzey There is a reprise in which the cor anglais takes the full melody, and the piano solo must completely subordinate his up and down running scales and accompany with his left hand.
This performance of one of my favourite works absolutely mesmerised me! I had, (and have!) never heard a better performance. Totally amazing. What I like even more, is that he has gone on to 'greater' things, and there are now several of his performances on RU-vid. Each one has brought me a new insight into the work, and has provided a new thinking, which is so rare. All played with the same dedication and care that he shows here - no flamboyance or showmanship. Wonderful, wonderful man. More power to him. As an example, hear him play Liszt No 2 , opening the Proms at the age of 18! Absolutely my favourite, even eclipsing Richter for me, which I never thought possible. BTW - Darren Motise, I sympathise with you, but we must remember that the conductor is the person who prepares the piece in rehearsal, so the orchestra and soloist will be used to his ways. The performance is only the culmination of all the hard work that goes on beforehand, which is why he, (she) gets the plaudits, rather in the same way as the director of a film. Just a thought! Lol.
I never even heard this Ravel piece before. It starts out sounding like Stravinsky then takes a hard left into Gershwinville all in the first movement.
Ravel heard a performance of one of Gershwin's musicals in New York and then sought Gershwin out. He heard him play his Rhapsody in Blue and most probably the Concerto in F. Both works were undeniable influences upon this work.
An orchestra I played with programmed this alongside the Gershwin Concerto in F, it was one of the most fantastic concerts I ever was a part of. Young Ben played every bit as well as Leon Bates did
What a beautiful piece this is, so sensitively played, with such remarkable concentration and skill a joy to listen to! Also great to see his progression.
The description of the "Music in this video" is way off. The orchestra is the BBC Scottish Symphony, and the conductor Ilan Volkov. James Judd and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic recorded the piece with Grosvenor about a decade later.
Yeah, RU-vid's algorithm gets it wrong so often with classical music. Clearly no human fact-checking happening for this genre. There used to be a way to report errors about that info, which I'm no longer seeing today, but even if I were, they're not exactly paying folks to clean up their errors, so ...
A fantastic pianist who will mature to be one of the greatest ever. I suspect the conductor set the slightly-too-fast second movement tempo, because Ben's tempi are always perfect.
He plays the final ascending passage as a chromatic scale because his hands probably couldn't comfortably reach the minor 9ths in the score. (But I don't recall if the scale is an ossia or not.) Amazing. (Funny, how we never saw him on Ellen, which is reserved for the fake prodigies whose parents claim their kids have talent, when they don't.)
Only, a very bitter consideration concerning the numbers of RU-vid videos views: Today 4 november, 2021 PSY - GANGNAM STYLE - posted or published (you choose the right term) 9 years ago : 4.2 Billion. This present video - s.a.s. = same as above - 3 november 2016, that is 4 years ago : 38,043. My personal conclusion: I feel deeply ashamed of myself for being a human being and for being part ,until who knows when, of this lousy world! Take care every body, cheers from Rome, Italy and GOD SAVE OUR IMMENSE BEN GROSVENOR!
I think you are right.I find it interesting to hear it this way.It is an idea I think and has its own quality too. But you are right. He played with us some years ago a Chopin Concerto. He played great, but my polish colleagues didn't like it. He is young and will change for sure. Here he was 11 and in the meantime he for sure is grown up heavily.
The conductor gave the crappiest prep beat at the start. It's a miracle the pianist started right. Imagine, this young boy with all this talent, and yet these arm-wavers usually get all the attention, for dancing on a podium and confusing orchestras with their lousy beat patterns. I'm not a fan of conductors.
I am a pro and the conducting and of course the prep beat at the beginning is absolutely correct. I don't know what is your problem with conductors. I often have problems with conductors but not with this one. He is absolutely precise and clear in what he wants.
@@MichaSchlechtriem Well, if you're a conductor, you probably will never know why many people have issue with conductors. I'm a "pro" too, you know. And I think I explained myself pretty well in my comment. And conductors are useless at least 50 percent of the time. If most conductors weren't so arrogant and full of themselves, maybe people would respect them more. So many of them show very little humility, and they don't understand that the orchestral musicians don't need to be educated by them. Orpheus proved they aren't even needed overall.
Are there no speech pathologists in England for schoolchildren?? Why is this gifted young man saddled with a lateral lisp as well as fronting problems??? He should have been receiving services from the age of 5!
What an offensive comment. Doubtless he avoided the introspection, and time, that working with a speech THERAPIST would have required and, as an adult, his speech is fine. They got it right, and left him unencumbered with the self consciousness YOU would have forced into him!
His teacher probably taught him the tiresome obligatory handshakes at the end. Pianists should not give their hands immediately to the conductor. Why not just take a bow? So sick of this.