This has proved a tricky album to review. I started listening to it one evening and found myself so bewitched my notes were (unusually!) full of superlatives. Maybe in the cold light of morning, my response would be more measured. Not a bit of it – this is, I think one, of the finest albums Benjamin Grosvenor has recorded, not to mention one of the very finest accounts of Chopin’s two sonatas ever committed to disc. Chopin has always been a natural fit for Grosvenor’s pianism, but here I find a fresh boldness that made his Busoni Piano Concerto such a remarkable experience at last year’s BBC Proms.

The sonatas bookend the album, with the Berceuse, First Ballade and Op 55 Nocturnes as a well-considered centrepiece. It’s good to hear the Ballade unshackled from the other three, while in the Berceuse, and even more in the Nocturnes, I found myself reminded of Rubinstein in Grosvenor’s quiet authority, flexing the lines of Op 55 No 1 less sinuously than Hough, but just as tellingly.

Common to both the sonata readings is an almost symphonic sense of scale, allied to a sureness of narrative. In his hands, miraculously, the opening movement of No 2 seems to unfold in a single breath; that of the Third abounds in detail, the lyrical second theme’s links to the opera house musingly realised, his rubato always thoughtful.

Both scherzos are brazenly fleet, that of the Second contrasting thrillingly granitic chords with a Più lento that sounds more like a pleading nocturne than usual, its reminiscence at the close wonderfully assuaging. In that of the Third, there’s a remarkable sense of having all the time in the world, despite the tempo – here he seems to be channelling Cortot – and the Trio offers a warmly sonorous contrast.

To the Funeral March, Grosvenor brings a very personal sense of grief, his tempo slower than many, and using rubato to make his points most powerfully; when we reach the major section there’s a simplicity that sounds effortless yet is so hard to achieve. Freire, whom I also admire greatly, adopts a much more flowing tempo, with a real sense of a procession coming into the foreground. There’s an unhurriedness to Grosvenor’s Largo of No 3, too, whose calm beauty contrasts with its dramatic fortissimo opening.

The finales both thrill: that of No 2 fast – faster than Argerich, Freire or Hamelin, and giving both Cortot and Rachmaninov a run for their money – veiled, with Grosvenor drawing out a line from within the texture. And No 3’s Presto, non tanto closes the album with an irresistible blend of confidence and pristine virtuosity. Altogether, a revelatory experience.

This review originally appeared in the SUMMER 2025 issue of International Piano – Subscribe Today