A member of the audience fainting seems to be a feature of most concerts I attend in the stuffy, cramped Sheldonian Theatre. Last Thursday the brilliant young pianist Benjamin Grosvenor was the artist to have his performance disrupted as someone collapsed just before the interval. The impact of his encore was all but lost. Oxford needs a modern concert venue to host performers of this stature.

Grosvenor is an extraordinary pianist. He is only 19 but has already electrified critics around the world. Last year he opened the BBC Proms season with Liszt’s second piano concerto, winning huge plaudits.

He was in Oxford to perform Grieg’s A minor piano concerto. It was an interpretation full of intelligence. Grosvenor brings to this highly Romantic work a muscular vigour and a seriousness which revealed aspects of the music other performers miss.

Grosvenor plays with amazing confidence. There is never any sense of technical effort. His control of tonal colour, dynamics and phrasing is masterly. He is a pianist to look out for. Oxford Philomusica provided the accompaniment.

In the second half of the concert the orchestra was joined by the London Symphony Chorus, the Dragon School Choir, plus soloists, for Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. This sequence of lusty medieval poems celebrates spring and the pleasures of the flesh.

Robert Davies, baritone, provided some fine comic touches, Elena Xanthudakis, the operatic soprano, gave a top class performance, and Tom Verney, counter tenor, also made a distinctive contribution. The Dragon School Choir deserves particular praise for its singing which had obviously been meticulously rehearsed.

But despite the massed forces and loud tutti there were passages where the ardour of chorus and orchestra seemed a little restrained, dampened perhaps by the downpour outside. For more on Grosvenor visit www.benjamingrosvenor.co.uk and his performance of the Chopin F sharp nocturne on YouTube.