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Endurance piano-playing isn’t yet an Olympic sport but if BMX racing and skateboarding can make it, then perhaps it should be.
If it comes to pass, then Ferruccio Busoni’s 1904 Piano Concerto could be the test-piece. It’s not only fiendishly difficult to play, it’s also very long – just over 70 minutes, compared to, say, Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, puny in comparison at a mere 40 minutes.
And as if sheer length isn’t enough, the composer summons a large male chorus for the closing movement. No wonder we don’t get to hear the piece very often.
It’s not a concerto that any pianist takes on lightly and Benjamin Grosvenor was certainly well prepared for last night’s Prom. This year, he has already played the concerto in Reykjavik and Berlin.
For this performance (the first at the Proms for 36 years), he was alongside the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, the Rodolphus Choir and conductor Edward Gardner: a pretty weighty lineup.
The orchestral opening almost feels as if the music has already begun before we hear the first notes, Grosvenor ensuring that the piano’s entry placed his instrument within rather than above the orchestral mix.
At times, his sound rippled so gently that it required close attention to make out if he was playing. At other moments, he thundered mightily, yet he was always in control of the sonic perspectives. Meanwhile, Gardner ensured that, despite the work’s dimensions, the sense of forward momentum never flagged.
In the fourth movement Tarantella, delirium broke out alongside moments of robust humour, which Grosvenor caught without exaggeration. Could the madcap solo cadenza actually be knockabout parody? Quite possibly.
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When the choirs (unseen towards the top of the hall) entered in the final movement, the piano fell briefly silent; as Grosvenor began to play again, it was if he was offering support to the voices, rather than trying to push them aside. The effect was strange but alluring.
Busoni must have known that his concerto wouldn't often be heard, but he also knew that when it was, it would have a tremendous effect. So it proved. In the circumstances, Grosvenor’s lovingly played encore seemed almost superfluous.
Before the concerto, the LPO had what was far more than a warmup session, giving a lively, occasionally raucous account of Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances.
In a performance notable for its attention to detail, the work of the seven percussionists stood out, as did the opening movement’s saxophone solo, so supply played by Martin Robertson that it seemed the embodiment of jazz cool avant la lettre (the Dances date from 1940).
A reviewer shouldn't try to second-guess a composer, but I for one wouldn't have minded hearing more of Robertson’s sax.
