Young English piano sensation Benjamin Grosvenor has a new solo album of Chopin, Liszt and Ravel out on the Decca label and is getting plaudits from all corners.

Although he won’t turn 20 for another few months and is still officially a student, Grosvenor is already a spectacular pianist.

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John Terauds

John Terauds, Editor-Emeritus of Ludwig van Toronto, is currently a Divinity student at the University of Toronto and a church music director. He joined the Toronto Star in 1988, was the classical music critic from 2005 to 2012, and continues as a freelance critic for the paper. He is the co-author of Roy Thomson Hall: A Portrait, a book written with Toronto Star Colleague, William Littler.

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I thought this would be the ideal excuse to show him off in Benjamin Britten’s Piano Concerto, which the composer wrote for himself in 1938. The version presented by Grosvenor at last summer’s BBC Proms with the National Youth Orchestra of Britain conductor Vladimir Jurowski is Britten’s 1943 revision.

We could really do with hearing this concerto more often.

Enjoy it instead of an extra cup of espresso (if you’re more in the mood for something exotically sensual, skip to the second movement):