Benjamin Grosvenor: Rhapsody in Blue

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The three principal works that Benjamin Grosvenor has chosen for his first concerto album complement each other perfectly. The urbane charm and dazzling virtuosity of Saint-Saens lead naturally on to the brittle brilliance and dry wit of his fellow Frenchman Ravel. Ravels distinctly jazzy G major Concerto was written soon after hed met Gershwin, and just a few years after the great Broadway songsmith had so spectacularly gateced his way into the classical world with his syncopated, note-bending Rhapsody in Blue. Rhapsody in Blue needs neither verbal advocacy nor apology from me, says Benjamin Grosvenor. It s simply a work of rapturous inventiveness a sort of musical kaleido of America, as Gershwin himself called it. In his new , Benjamin Grosvenor puts aside the large and less wieldy symphonic version in favour of the original jazz-band arrangement that Ferde Grofe made for the works 1924 premiere, given by Gershwin himself with the Paul Whiteman Band. Its a more version, says Grosvenor, very colourful and extremely interesting it even includes a banjo, which adds a unique sound. As for the two French concertos, theyre very much part of a personal crusade: Ive often felt that the French piano repertoire is underrated or that its judged as no more than opulent mood-music or pictures in sound, but I ve adored the Ravel and Saint-Saens concertos from the first time I heard them. The CD also features Benjamin Grosvenor playing three solo encores, one from each composer represented. For Saint-Saens, hes chosen Leopold Godowskys deliciously free transcription of The Swan, the famous cello solo from The Carnival of the Animals. Ravel is represented by a brief Prelude that he wrote in 1913 as a -reading test for students at the Paris Conservatoire. And, to end the CD, there s Gershwins immortal song Love Walked In in a piano transcription by his friend, the eccentric and eclectic Australian-born pianist composer Percy Grainger, who created it specifically to serve as an encore for his own performances of Gershwins Piano Concerto and Rhapsody in Blue.