Pianist Benjamin Grosvenor Selects

About the Playlist

November 4, 2024

In anticipation of pianist Benjamin Grosvenor’s return to our stage on November 7, 2024, we asked him to share some of his favorite musical tracks. Here’s what he chose:

Britten Sea Interludes – Dawn 

This is track that makes me think of home. I live in London now, but I’m from a place called Southend-on-sea on the Essex coast, and while Benjamin Britten’s part of the coast is a little further north, this piece always makes me think of familiar landscapes. Dawn over the mud flats, the marshes, the estuaries of north Essex, the moods of the North Sea, upturned boats and stony beaches. When I hear the opening I can almost smell the sea air. 

Stacey Kent – Corcavado with the Ébène Quartet

There’s something so soulful and intimate about Stacey Kent’s voice, and I find it transports me to the atmosphere of a subterranean jazz bar without leaving my own house. I love this song, and this collaboration of one of my favourite string quartets is a dream. This whole album by the Ébène is wonderful. 

Busoni Piano Concerto – Tarantella, Gerstein

I’ve been playing this piece a few times this year, it being a big anniversary year for Busoni. It is a work like no other, a 70-minute long piano concerto, with enormously diverse references and inspirations and with a male-voice-choir in the last movement. It was a real journey to learn the piece and while my performances for now are all done, it’s still on my mind! This fourth movement, a fiery Italian dance that gets more and more crazy throughout, is in itself quite a journey.