How do you mostly listen to music?
Most often with headphones on a phone or laptop, given time spent on the road. I try to listen from uncompressed sources (ie not MP3s) when I can, as the data compression can alter tone and reduce ambient information; it often wreaks havoc on piano transients too.
What was the first ever record or CD you bought?
The first CD I bought myself was a compilation of “100 greatest pieces of classical music” – which, to my very young self, seemed good value for the pocket money I had at the time! It was quite a useful introduction to some of the repertoire, but I later realised the standard of performances was not good. One of the first recordings I became obsessed with was a cassette tape I had of Jacqueline Du Pré playing the Elgar cello concerto. I used to listen to it in the car on the way to primary school. It made a major impression and convinced me to take up the cello – my ambition was always to play this piece, and I did just start getting my teeth into it before I put the instrument aside as the piano took over.
... and the last?
A disc of William Byrd Consort Music.
What’s your musical guilty pleasure?
I take guilty pleasure in not permitting myself any guilty pleasures.
If you found yourself with six months free to learn a new instrument, what would it be?
I have always regretted giving up the cello – there are types of phrasing that are only possible on stringed instruments, and the cello in particular for me has such a glorious sound.
Did you ever consider a career outside of music?
Not with any seriousness. At school I was good at maths and took some exams early in that subject, but I was most interested in English literature and I’ve always been an avid reader. So I might have pursued that if music hadn’t worked out.
What single thing would improve the format of the classical concert?
As the soloist, it’s hard for me to know what might improve the whole concertgoing experience, other than me playing better! I have often played in venues where audiences like to have the performer talk about the work they are about to play. This is something that doesn’t come naturally to me – it can be a challenge to switch between the two different modes of thought, especially when one is very much “in the zone” for the musical performance (sometimes it can be tricky to string an intelligible sentence together backstage in the few minutes after a concert!)
However, I do believe that music education in schools is vital for cultivating new audiences. In the UK and several other countries, music has been ever more cut back as part of the curriculum in state schools. We’re not only denying children a window on to a hugely important part of their cultural heritage (irrespective of the era of music concerned) but we’re discarding an important group of tools that can help their general learning and mental skills in so many ways. More music education in schools has to be the starting point for any improvement in the classical concertgoing arena.
If you had to pick one work to introduce someone to the wonders of classical music, what would it be?
There are many possibilities, but one might be Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony in the live recording by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Artur Rodziński in 1946. Classical music demands concentration over a span and I don’t think that reducing it to soundbites can work as it becomes a kind of deluxe wallpaper rather than art music. At the same time, this particular symphony of Tchaikovsky appeals to the whole range of emotions, with a kind of tractability that makes it more approachable than many other symphonic works. Tchaikovsky outlined a “programme” for his symphony – a form of explanation of what each part represents (highly unusual in this context) – so it can be appreciated either with reference to this additional aid for new listeners, or solely as ‘pure music’. Rodziński’s performance with the New York Philharmonic brings out all parts of the emotional landscape and does so with overwhelming intensity.
The temptation with new listeners might be to assume that any performance will do, but my own experience – harking back to that “100 best”! – is that a performance that makes the best case for the music is a lot more likely to engage the listener and to spur them to listen further.
Which conductor or performer of the past would you like to have worked with?
Many, but confining it to artists we are able to hear on recordings, it would be Wilhelm Furtwängler – a great conductor whose work has always interested me. His tempi and phrasing were remarkably pliant and yet one doesn’t notice the “deviations from the norm”, only how organic and driven by vision is the whole.
What’s the most unusual place you’ve ever performed?
I once performed to 13 people in a barn at an opera festival in the middle of Wales. The sparrows flying around made up the numbers.
What’s been your most memorable live music experience as an audience member?
I was fortunate enough to hear Martha Argerich play Beethoven’s first piano concerto in Warsaw. The recreative potency and imaginative compass were extraordinary, but most striking was the sheer magnetism and spontaneity of her phrasing, notwithstanding the fact that she’d played this concerto so many times before.
Another that comes to mind was an astounding performance of Prokofiev’s second concerto with the exceptional young violinist Hyeyoon Park. It was made even more remarkable when in the last movement her E-string broke, giving her about two bars (it was a live broadcast) to switch instruments with the concertmaster and dive straight back into the full throes of this difficult music. After some pass-the-parcel among the violin section, she was able to get her violin back for the end of the performance, but it was the most incredible feat of fearlessness and commitment that I have seen on the concert stage.
When busy touring I hear live music most often when I go into the hall for the second half of an orchestral concert in which I have been involved, which can be a great privilege. Recently, I have heard some wonderful performances of Beethoven 6 with Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé orchestra.
We’re giving you a time machine: what period, or moment in musical history, would you travel to and why?
There are accounts of Chopin improvising at the piano for a few of his friends that suggest a type of music making that is not fully represented in any of his published compositions; also of his playing his own spontaneous transcriptions of some of Beethoven’s works or Beethoven’s sonatas, for example, in ways that had never occurred to his listeners. It’s tempting to wish to return to hear Beethoven playing Beethoven or Liszt playing Liszt yet, for unparalleled uniqueness, I think these private musings of Chopin might have been the most moving and inspiring to have heard.
- Benjamin Grosvenor’s album Homages is out now on Decca Classics. He performs with the LSO at the Barbican, London on 26 January, and with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester on 4 February.
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