Benjamin Grosvenor's Southbank debut

As you know, Benjamin Grosvenor, 20, is the darling of every pianophile in Britain and beyond. We were there in force to hear his debut recital at the Southbank's Queen Elizabeth Hall on Wednesday night, which gratifyingly was packed out.

Benjamin Grosvenor as a performer, it has to be said, is the absolute antithesis of everything that most serious piano fans loathe about certain older, more celebrity-conscious performers who pull in the crowds. He has a modest, unspoilt presence on the platform, the informal (red shirt, dark trousers) look of the lad next door and a rather surprised smile when he spots there are people listening to him and clapping, as if he hadn't quite expected it. He's a smallish youth with enormous and beautiful hands that look almost incongruous - as if they've been grafted on from the spirit of Friedman or Moiseiwitsch.

It's his virtuosity, delicacy, sparkle and whirligig whooshes of inspiration that tend to be noticed first, but perhaps something else is even more vital: he is not afraid to play quietly. Instead of projecting every phrase out to the back row, he focuses on intense beauty of tone in the pianissimo range and makes the audience come to him, drawing them in to a type of enhanced listening experience. Scarily few musicians dare to do this today, a few exceptions being Zimerman, Perahia and Anderszewski - good company indeed. He doesn't overpedal: clarity remains uppermost, and in his Bach Fourth Partita, which opened the concert, touches of pedal served just to enhance a resonance or mark the ambience of a rhythm here and there.

In the Bach, too, he homed in on the exact quality that makes its Allemande so mesmerising. This movement is a piece of such beauty that it wouldn't have disgraced the St Matthew Passion; its increasingly florid melody has about it a meditative, stream-of-consciousness quality of improvisation that seems to exist in a state of grace, in every sense. Benjamin caught the precise nuance of its still heart and inner radiance. This takes some doing. It shone beside a fleet Overture and Gigue, a lively, supple Courante, and much elegance in the brief extras with which Bach peppers this most expansive of his keyboard partitas - all of it enhanced by a keen structural intelligence which found the strength of line and harmonic progressions underlying every filigree twist and turn. If I wished he'd played the repeats, it was just because this was music-making of such excellence that it would have been nice to hear it all again.

The Chopin F sharp minor Polonaise and the Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise revealed something more problematic. For some reason, Grosvenor was playing a Yamaha. This powerful piano firm has, of course, developed its instruments considerably in the past 20 years or so, but it is still rare to see one on a London concert platform, and its tone did not prove especially welcome. Benjamin's personal sound, which is intensely beautiful with never a crash or thump, was still there, without a doubt. But I've heard him play quite a number of times before, and I missed something that he usually provides: colour. It is obvious to anyone who follows his progress closely that variety of colour is paramount to him. Yet the Yamaha tone, which tends to the overbright and even the glassy at times, just does not encompass the palette of mellowness and myriad shadings that he's capable of. The Bach worked well enough on it, but the Chopin needed that range. This was slightly frustrating for anyone who's heard Benjamin conjour those colours and therefore wished he would be able to do so on such a vital occasion as this. Presumably he had, in some way, shape or form, chosen the instrument - or maybe he is too modest to make a fuss about it? Please, someone, give the boy the chance to choose a favourite Steinway himself next time?

For the second half, Benjamin kept up the dance theme established first in the Bach with a selection of rare pianophilia delights: a selection of Scriabin's early mazurkas and a heady Russian waltz, eight utterly enchanting waltzes by Granados (which are a treat for any keen pianist to read through - you can find some of them in a recent issue of Pianist magazine), and the whole lot topped off by Schulz-Evler's deliciously dizzy virtuoso transcription of The Blue Danube. The charm of Benjamin's phrasing, his zippy lightness of touch, sprinkled a heart-warming trail of fairydust across the byways of this enchanting and original selection. He provided three encores, too: Godowsky's transcription of the famous Albeniz tango, then Liszt's Gnomenreigen - very fast, these gnomes, enjoying a whirlwind, impish outing as if testing the capabilities of a new pianistic Ferrari - and Benjamin's party-piece, Morton Gould Boogie-Woogie Etude, to close.

Piano aside, it was an evening that nobody will forget in a hurry. As my colleague Michael Church comments in his review for The Independent, "with virtuosity of this calibre, allied to a probing musical intelligence, the sky's the limit."

Meanwhile, it is lovely to see that Benjamin has become an "ambassador" for the superb London Music Masters' Bridge Project, designed to encourage instrumental music tuition in inner-city primary schools. Here's what they said, announcing it the other night:

London Music Masters (LMM) announces the multi-award-winning British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor as its ambassador to champion the cause of music in schools.  The former child prodigy, whorecently became one of the youngest ever winner of two Gramophone Awards and won the ‘Critics Choice Award’ at the Classic Brits, will act as a role model for children on LMM’s Bridge Project in some of London’s most deprived boroughs. Born to a musical family in Southend-on-Sea, Grosvenor is keen to encourage children to learn music at an early age and  for every child to have this opportunity:

'It was a great pleasure to visit Jessop Primary School and to witness the remarkable work being done by LMM there. It was touching to see the enthusiasm the children demonstrated for their instruments and for the learning process, and I hope that as an ambassador for this charity I can help them with their important work.'

LMM Bridge Project

LMM’s Bridge Project was established five years ago to make classical music accessible to all - by providing a sustained programme of high-quality music instrumental tuition in inner-city primary schools.  Working with children from financially disadvantaged and culturally diverse backgrounds, the Bridge Project places music at the heart of the school curriculum from an early age and enables interaction with exceptional musicians.  The Bridge Project’s driving goal is to address the lack of cultural and ethnic diversity among classical music professionals and audiences - making music an instrument of change.

Welcome to Wexford

I've just been to Wexford to review the Opera Festival for The Independent and the piece is out now, here.

It was great to be back at the only festival where you walk through a row of terraced houses to find yourself in a state-of-the-art bijou opera house that you can't actually see until you're in it; where the first singing you hear is by the audience, who give their all in the Irish National Anthem; where the directorial team stands by the doors at the end to greet and thank everyone for being there; and where you can hear the stars before they become stars and appreciate forgotten delights of the repertoire reaching the limelight at last. Such is Wexford's reputation that the great and good of the opera world descend on it from all over. Chat with someone in the hotel lift and he'll probably turn out to be the chairman of an opera company from the other side of the globe. If you're the sort of music-lover who feels that an opera doesn't necessarily have to be as good as Don Giovanni in order to merit a hearing, Wexford is for you.

As usual, the festival conjured a trio of rare marvels out of the back catalogue of operatic history: works by Chabrier, Cilea and Delius, with the latter's A Village Romeo and Juliet calling for particular spotlight in our favourite Marmitey-composer's anniversary year and supported here by the Delius Trust. You know 'The Walk to the Paradise Garden', which is an orchestral interlude from this opera? The rest of the evening is equally gorgeous. Honest to goodness, guv: it's one of the most beautiful operas I have ever heard.

I'm in danger of turning into one of those people who rants on and on and on about Delius, but I was bowled over, partly by the poignancy of the work - it distils the tragic beauty of life into a potent brew indeed - but perhaps even more by the anguish that a piece so poetic, so delicate, so exquisite, has had to go unappreciated all these years. I hope that's going to change now, because it should. OK, it doesn't match operatic norms - it's slow, the libretto is weak, the protagonists are Swiss (is that the kiss of death?). But so what? Silk chiffon is not invalid just because it isn't cashmere.

Chabrier's Le roi malgre lui (King In Spite of Himself) proved to be a totally bananas concoction in which the French king is elected king of Poland against his will. For Chabrier, it provides an excuse for a dazzling array of cleverness, confusion and coloratura, poised somewhere between Gounod and Ravel. The second act in particular is a Laduree's-window of truly yummy set pieces - waltz, barcarolle, Gypsy song - any of which would make brilliant stand-alone concert pieces. Shame about the production, but the singing was great. Ditto for the Cilea L'Arlesiana - based on the same play for which Bizet wrote his very different incidental music. A very full-on Italian verismo job, this, much relished in the pit by David Angus and the enthusiastic orchestra, and on stage turning up several potential new stars, notably the Italian mezzo Annunziata Vestri and the Russian tenor Dmitry Golovnin. The latter's lunchtime recital was also a major highlight of my visit. I enjoyed his performance so much that I grabbed him for an impromptu interview, which I shall bring you at the first opportunity.

Meanwhile I'd have loved to see the face of the Chabrier's super lead soprano, Nathalie Paulin, on learning the identity of the gentleman she selected at random from the audience to dance with her in her cabaret show. He was Antony Craig, production editor of Gramophone. Read his blogpost about Wexford's Delius here.

RIP Hans Werner Henze (1926 - 2012)

Sad news this morning that Hans Werner Henze has died at the age of 86. This great, generous, versatile and often startling composer has touched indelibly the lives of everyone who knew him. Operas, ballets, symphonies, concertos, choral works, chamber music, politically engaged music - everything poured prolifically from his pen. He was mentor to numerous younger composers and his music has an unmistakeable voice, edgy, sometimes unsettling, always overflowing with vitality.

Boulezian has just published a heartfelt and thorough essay on the man and his music. Here is the tribute from his publisher, Schott's. And the BBC's news report. And an interview from December 2009 in which he talks to Tom Service.

I deeply regret that I never met Henze, but I'll never forget my introduction to his music at university, many moons ago. There, the eclectic and astounding Peter Zinovieff, who taught us "acoustics" (though his classes certainly weren't about how to build a concert hall), used to talk about Henze a great deal. Zinovieff, a pioneer of the synthesizer, was the dedicatee of his Tristan, the tape parts of which were created at Zinovieff's electronics studio. He played the last section of this work to us. Wagner; a child's voice; the heartbeat of (if I remember right) a dog. Most of us took a little while to recover!



Among the best-known of his works is Ondine, the atmospheric ballet score composed for Frederick Ashton to choreograph, and associated forever with Margot Fonteyn. Here it is by way of tribute, starring Fonteyn herself and Michael Somes.

Songs of names, in Berlin

Meet Max Raabe, German 1920s superstar. Only he's not. He's here right now. The singer has spent his entire career steeped in the soundworld of the Roaring Twenties and the less roaring, but more complex and nuanced early Thirties, from America, Germany and more: Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, the Comedian Harmonists...

He's long been a luminary at home, but now his fame seems about to spread. Riding the crest of the "vintage revival" wave, while London theatres are foot-tapping to the irresistible strains of Singin' in the Rain, Top Hat and Cabaret, Raabe has been taken up by Decca and we can expect an album from him in the new year. On Tuesday I went to Berlin to check him out.

I love this stuff. It's not as distant as you might think. My late father-in-law - who was lucky to escape Berlin in 1936 by being sent to school in Britain - was a passionate fan of the Comedian Harmonists as a boy. When we took him some CDs of them about ten years ago, he hadn't heard them since the Thirties, but, aged over 80, he still remembered all the words. And then there was my own supposed/distant/fabled Famous Relative in New York, Eddie Duchin, a band leader and celebrity in that era, who has always fascinated me for obvious reasons. Today the dance music of the Jazz Age is difficult to classify - but it occupies a niche of its own. Either you love it or you don't, and it so happens that I do.

With his 14-piece band, the Palast Orchester, Max Raabe is playing for a week at one of the more extraordinary theatres I've encountered. The Admiralspalast Theater, on Friedrichstrasse, is among very few venues in the German capital that survived World War II and the communist era more or less intact. It's an Art Deco gem - originally opened as a bath house around the turn of the century, it morphed into a "pleasure palace" and an ice-rink before settling into theatre-dom in the Twenties following a sleek refit. The plush red and gold detail of the interior was added in the Thirties (with all that that implies) and walking in today one can scarcely help imagining the officials who might once have been there to check out the Comedian Harmonists - Germany's most successful popular group of the time, three of whose six members were Jewish and who were therefore forced to disband in 1933.

Raabe told me before the performance that his grandmother used to attend shows there as a young girl. He has been drawn to this style of performance since the word go. At the age of 12, he says, "I used to put on my father's top hat and perform songs like this..." Growing up in the Westphalian countryside, he dreamed of moving to Berlin and becoming a performer, so duly enrolled to study there as an opera singer. But along the way, he and some friends got together to form a 1920s-style band for fun, to entertain at student balls. They found themselves in demand. He's never looked back.

Perhaps this is Historically Informed Performance meets the Twenties: many of Raabe's songs are transcribed note by note and instrument by instrument from the recordings of the time. "We now have more than 500 to choose from," he declares. And they're certainly varied, ranging from 'Singin' in the Rain' itself, in English, to a delicious Cuban Rumba, to a French number or two and the Comedian Harmonists' big hit, 'Mein kleine, gruene Cactus', which got the strongest cheer of the evening. It's a little difficult to sit still in a theatre and listen to it all, because if your feet are anything like mine, they'd like to take a turn around the non-existent dancefloor. 

The Palast Orchester, full of spirited and amazingly versatile musicians, does all the tricks of the time: coordinated standing and swooping, switching from instrument to instrument (sousaphone to string bass, sax to clarinet, and, more unusually, trumpet to violin). For one song with a naval theme, two of the trumpeters brought in a basin of water and blew a bubbly refrain or two through it. (Left: the sousaphone player warms up before the show...)

The style is slick, light, elegant, rhythmic. There is no soup. Wit and whimsy are uppermost; and even in the more romantic numbers, there's a careful balance between irony and a sincere heart. But there are a few nice little updatings: the use of projected images from time to time so that we can see the musicians in close-up; and a specially made Muppet-style figure who crosses the projection now and then, just enough to raise a gentle laugh.

And, speaking of updating, Raabe writes his own material as well, in style. "I want to capture the same kind of wit and elegance you find in the songs of that era," he says - indeed, his nonchalant presentation style, unfussed and very smooth, takes its cue from the world of Cole Porter himself. His opening song on Tuesday was one of his own: it describes a party at which every celebrity you can think of is present, including Karl Lagerfeld and Lars von Trier, but our protagonist is "only here for you...". Past style meets present-day preoccupation in a sort of musical Heston Blumenthal of unlikely yet excellent flavour.

But in performing the songs of the era, it's all about credit where credit is due, and Raabe always introduces the number with the names of its composer and lyricist. "When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the music did not disappear," he says, "but the names did. Great names, like Friedrich Hollaender, who worked with Max Reinhardt..." Hollaender composed, among other things, the music for Die blaue Engel, starring Marlene Dietrich. He was, of course, forced to escape Germany and made his way to Hollywood. "There were so many fantastic composers and writers whose names had to disappear. We always say the names."

Is this Raabe's song of names, then? (pace Norman Lebrecht). Is he restoring the lost world of these refugee songwriters, bringing them home at last to the land that betrayed them? Is it all part of the ongoing, protracted healing process - present, but always painful - that you see all around you in Berlin? It's tempting to think so. But Raabe just smiles and says: "I think that would be oversignificant. We are just here to entertain."

I think he is doing a little more than that. Who knows, maybe that's one reason he's going global.

Socks for the Lilac Fairy?

The other day the Royal Opera House held a Q&A session on Twitter with two of the Royal Ballet's top stars, husband and wife team Marianela Nunez and Thiago Soares. Fans tweeted their questions and at 5pm Marianela - everyone's favourite Lilac Fairy and Odette right now - and her lovely resident prince picked a selection and answered them online. The questions ranged from favourite roles/choreographers to issues about dancing around difficult sets to the challenges of a dancer's physical regime. One fan even asked Marianela what her shoe size is... because she wanted to knit her some socks.

It struck me that I've never heard a classical music fan offer to knit socks, or indeed anything else, for a favourite soloist. A test tweet I put out, pondering why nobody's yet offered to provide Lang Lang with home-made gloves, produced a flood of snide witticisms. One person said mittens would do better. Another quipped that perhaps Schumann's hand-stretcher would do him some good.

OK, so perhaps Lang Lang wasn't the best choice... and it was probably a little unfair on our dancers... But the attitudes of ballet fans and music fans to the top practitioners of their art is so different that I started wondering why.

Ballet fans queue outside the stage door for autographs. They send or even throw flowers (well, they used to, pre recession). They offer to knit socks. They want to know what the stars eat, or don't eat. They're disappointed yet concerned when a favourite dancer is off with an injury; they wish them a speedy recovery. They trot back to the same production time and again to test out the different casts and enjoy the compare-and-contrast process (our friends at The Ballet Bag often post about this). There's a high degree of sympathy and rather a lot of love. Ballet fans seem to be seriously nice about their enthusiasm.

And classical music fans? Be too successful a musician and they start to hate you. Be a woman and you risk having to fight a patronising, sexist atmosphere. Bring out a recording and someone will tear it to bits online if not in print. Give a concert and someone will bring in a recording device without your agreement - and the halls won't even stop them. Hold a political opinion and someone tells you to shut up and play, or shreds your musicianship because they don't happen to like your views. Suffer injury or be ill - especially if you're a singer - and you get a reputation for cancelling and letting people down. Hey, they've paid a lot of money for their seats and that apparently means you can't lose your voice even if you have. And you don't get true adulation until you're over 60. Our fans not only don't like their soloists; it often seems they don't even respect them. If you're a fan, be enthusiastic about a favourite performer and you're regarded as a non-critical idiot who's over-impressed, or suffering a post-teenage crush, or second only to a stalker.

Why this discrepancy? Looking at the questions for Marianela and Thiago on Twitter (hashtag #askthedancers), it seems that many come from people who themselves dance, professionally or semi-professionally or just for fun (like me), or did so as kids. They're concerned with issues of daily life: how do you eat, manage injury, spend your spare time if there is any? Ballet fans identify with the dancers. There's always someone they'd like to be, given the chance. They understand the processes better because they do it themselves, or have done at some point.

Now, I'm not saying that concert and opera-goers don't play and sing, because a lot do. Yet the degree of ignorance about what it takes to be a top-flight musician is much more extreme. Anyone can see how devoted, indeed possessed by the profession, a dancer must be; but some concert-goers don't even realise that a pianist has to practise every day ("Do you have a piano at home, then, love?" someone asked a well-known soloist friend of mine. "What's your day job? D'you work in a bank?").

The sheer physicality of musical performance is frequently downplayed in favour of the high-falutin' issues of poetry, philosophy, historically informed whatever, artistic fulfilment and so forth. That means that little consideration is given to, for example, performing conditions. The number of excellent musicians who have to face their craft being hobbled by the effects of freezing cold venues, lack of food or even tea, or lousy, badly-maintained pianos doesn't bear thinking about. International soloists travel much more than star dancers. Nobody seems eager to make air travel any pleasanter anytime soon, but the toll it takes on the body and mind can be severe. Why do we still expect soloists to function like automatons and regard them as unprofessional if they're unable to give 500% in an unheated venue on a snowy day after a long, stressful journey? Our lack of understanding of the profession means that we often don't let them do their best, even though that is all that they want to do.

Perhaps it is time to start communicating a little better regarding the absolute slog involved in a high-level musical career. Injury may not be quite as hefty an issue as it is for dancers, but it is really not that different. Being a professional musician involves intense physical labour, yet the number of performers who suffer serious injury or illness yet are simply denigrated for their own absence is quite alarming.

How to tackle these issues? Ideally, more people should learn to play musical instruments themselves. We need to identify more with the people who perform the music we love, and that means learning their craft from inside. Meanwhile, maybe we need to hold knitting lessons for classical music fans. My first pair of gloves will probably go to Benjamin Grosvenor.