BBC Prom 1, 2011
Check the odometer. The Proms deserve a jolly rev up when they start, and after 117 summer seasons, it was a fresh young pianist, Benjamin Grosvenor, who provided it. At nineteen, he came out in a casual shirt looking like a college freshman who might be spending his vacation as a pizza delivery boy or valet parking attendant. Those attendants are notorious for taking Porsches and Jags for a quick spin, returning them with hot wheels. Grosvenor had his chances with Liszt's Piano Concerto no. 2, but he returned it respectfully to its owner. He displayed glittering fingers and a beguiling soft touch at the beginning, but this work is faux art, setting a mood simply to tease the audience before the fireworks display.
What's needed is a fiery soloist who takes command, but Grosvenor decided instead to be an equal partner with the orchestra, dutifully led by Jiri Belohlavek, now finishing his last season as conductor of the BBC Symphony. He had little to work with in Liszt's rum-tum orchestral part, and therefore the performance, while not fizzling, wasn't sizzling, either. That the tousle-headed Grosvenor is Britain's next bright hope for a flashy virtuoso was justified by his encore, Gyorgy Cziffra's wild arrangement of Brahms's hoary Hungarian Dance no. 5. Grosvenor took this one for a joy ride, and the audience erupted. More power to him.

