It is a warm Wednesday evening as I step into the home of Prof. Clarence Rowley, a professor of Mechanical Aerospace and Engineering, for a Princeton University Concerts reception with Benjamin Grosvenor, a world-class pianist, and arguably one of the top pianists of the 21st century. He sat down with me and twenty other Princeton students at a round-circle dinner, discussing a range of topics — from his least favorite composer to his persistence in pursuing a musical career since he was ten. Despite his global prestige, he was down-to-earth and even shy at times in the face of our never-ending questions, giving thoughtful pauses between each answer.
The next evening, he was ablaze under the spotlight at a sold-out Richardson Auditorium on the piano, his playing flowing like quicksilver. The seamless twists and turns between tender and turbulent passages reverberated through the space. His playing conveyed the seasoned poise from an illustrious career, but was still full of a refreshing passion that coursed effortlessly throughout the two-hour concert.
Grosvenor’s piano skills progressed rapidly after he won the BBC Young Musician Competition keyboard final in 2004, one of the most prestigious classical music competitions in the world. He signed with Decca Classics in 2011, the youngest British musician to do so, and has continued an decorated piano performance career since then. After Wednesday’s reception, ‘The Daily Princetonian’ sat down to talk about his musical journey, performance approaches, and favorite memories.
Daily Princetonian: Could you talk a little bit about the program for this Princeton performance? Why did you pick each piece?
Benjamin Grosvenor: I’ve wanted to learn “Pictures at an Exhibition” [by Mussorgsky] for a long time. When you have a new piece, you try to put it alongside [more well-known] things, like the Schumann and Brahms go together. The Schumann Fantasie is an amazing piece. It’s one of these pieces, like the Sonata, in that the structure is completely unique, and it’s so emotional. And I think the Brahms is a nice contrast because, for late Brahms, there’s something very static about it. Particularly a sort of autumnal monologue, and the atmosphere is much more in one place. Very often in the second half of a program, it’s nice to expand the texture of what you had before. I would normally put the later music in the second half so that the textures are fuller, the climaxes are bigger, and there are more colors.
DP: How do you contrast the different styles between the first and second half of the program, then?
BG: The Fantasie is a complex piece which, in a sense, is quite hard to understand, because the form is not predictable. It’s not a sonata — it has elements of that, but it’s not. It’s a unique form. So in a way, it can be a little hard to digest as a listener. But, by comparison, “Pictures” is incredibly easy to understand because it is centered around the titles: the pictures.
DP: What’s happened since you were last here at Princeton in 2017? What brought you back, and what’s changed since then?
BG: I mean, there was a pandemic. Everything stopped, and then you had to do these weird streaming performances. Just playing to an empty hall and knowing people were listening, but getting a concert hall to yourself was very strange. It was an experience I don’t want to repeat in the future.
DP: You’ve mentioned being inspired by historical recordings. Were there specific pianists or recordings from the past that have influenced your playing the most? When you learn or perform a piece, do you try to add your own unique flairs to it, or do you try to just follow along?
BG: I think it’s important if you’re going to go along that line [of listening to historical recordings] and use that in preparation of a piece, I think the key is to listen very widely. Listen to the many recordings of a piece, like the Schumann Fantasie, for example, of which there are many recordings. And, if you listen widely, then there’s no danger for you. Especially as a young musician, there’s a danger in listening to a particular quality and your perception getting tainted. I don’t think that’s the way to engage in that kind of listening. I think you need to listen to many interpretations, and it would be somewhere further down the road [of learning the piece]. And through that process, you’ve got to understand the piece and its many personalities.
DP: You’ve been playing or performing for quite a long time now, so how has your approach to preparing for performances or practicing changed since your early days as a young pianist?
BG: I am much more thoughtful in the way that I practice now. When I was young, a lot of things came naturally to me, and the way that I would absorb music was very natural. And as you get older, I mean, it’s not quite the same for that. And, you know, as you get older, then you need to be much more conscious, because, sadly, you don’t quite absorb music with the same kind of fluency.
DP: You’ve recorded several albums of Chopin’s music. What draws you to his compositions?
BG: He’s a composer who really sent me on my journey. It was his music that lit my flame for music. The first piece of Chopin I played was a Chopin waltz, and the quicksilver nature of the music, the fact that you know within a few bars that the emotion changes, was appealing to me. It was almost like a conversation. He was speaking to me. There’s something about his melodies that is tailored to the decay. He knew he was a master of the instrument, and he just had a very unique harmonic language and this incredible gift of melody, and that’s what I’ve always found captivating.
DP: Do you have a favorite memory of one of your performances?
BG: The first time I played at the BBC Proms in London, it was a big event. I’ve played many times over the years, but the first time I played was at the opening concert of the festival. My first exposure to the atmosphere was very special. Otherwise, over the years, I think it's always more memorable when you're playing with other people. I enjoy doing piano recitals, and it's a big part of my life, but I don't look back at piano recitals and find them particularly memorable, because working with other musicians and building something together is the thing that endures in the mind. Very special things happen when you share these moments with other musicians.
DP: What would you think is your most unique quality as a pianist, like, what do you think is something that you bring to the pieces you play or your performances that you think makes you stand out?
BG: The joy of piano playing, for me, is drawing a range of sounds. We call it color, finding the colors in music, and it’s such a wide spectrum that the piano can do. That’s what I find exciting. It’s exploring all those subtleties and finding new sounds and really exploring the full range of what the piano can do, from the quietest sound to the loudest. I hope that people would think of me as a colorful pianist.
Chloe Lau is a staff Prospect writer and a staff Features writer for the ‘Prince.’ She can be reached at chloelau@princeton.edu.
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