Benjamin’s Busoni in Berlin
This weekend, Benjamin Grosvenor makes his much-anticipated debut at the Berlin Philharmonie with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and their Music Director Robin Ticciati. Benjamin performs Busoni’s Piano Concerto in the city the composer himself called home in the years until his death in 1924. Himself an incomparable virtuoso, Busoni’s extravagant, five-movement concerto is rarely performed, not least due to its large forces and uncompromising technical and musical demands, but finds its natural exponent in Benjamin, one of the foremost pianists of our time.
Later this Spring, Benjamin also looks forward to Prokofiev’s third piano concerto with the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln and conductor Elim Chan, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and conductor Kazuki Yamada, as well as solo recitals at both Chicago Symphony Center and Wigmore Hall including Brett Dean’s new work Faustian Pact, written for and premiered by the British pianist at the Lucerne Piano Festival in January.
Meanwhile, celebrating another 100th anniversary, Benjamin’s 2012 recording of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is soon to be re-released by Decca Classics on limited edition blue vinyl marking the anniversary of the works’ premiere in New York, which is available to pre-order now.