There is a real risk of wishing to attend a concert given by a child prodigy for the curiosity factor, rather than to enjoy an evening of superbly performed music.

And questions abound. Do we give a little leeway to performers such as Benjamin Grosvenor, who is 15, because of his age? Or are we more critical?

The acclaimed young pianist, who has been performing since he was 11, has seen his career rocket in the last two years as his performance dates have taken him from his English home to cities around the world ¿ and the reasons for that are well-founded, as the audience on Saturday evening at The City Hall Theatre was to discover.

The reality of his age vanished very quickly as he sat at the piano and opened his concert with three short works by Domenico Scarlatti. They were his sonatas in D major, F minor and D minor, and these pieces immediately demonstrated the virtuosity of this performer. As the programme notes say: "The sonatas demand great brilliance from the performer, for the music ranges over the whole keyboard, often very rapidly, with spectacular arpeggios, hand-crossing, and fast scale passages all adding to the dazzling effect." And dazzling it was ¿ the Sonata in D major is an exceptionally vibrant piece, studded with staccato passages and very fast, a tremendous introduction to Mr. Grosvenor's superb technique.

The F minor is slower; beautiful, meditative and contemplative, it called for carefully considered phrasing, and Mr. Grosvenor's interpretation was an impressively thoughtful one. Scarlatti's robust D minor includes some very showy passages, and his dazzling execution of this sonata impressed an appreciative audience, as his performance continued to build an estimation of this young pianist's maturity and confidence.

The Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz was also a child prodigy, so it is irresistible to consider whether or not the pianist felt a special affinity for his work. Certainly he appeared to thoroughly enjoy performing the three pieces from Iberia (Book 1). Impressionist in style, they paint a haunting, mysterious and exotically beautiful landscape, and each one provided him with the opportunity to demonstrate his interpretative prowess as well as his dazzling technique.

The first piece from Iberia was exotic and mesmerising, while the second was much more contemporary with the usual technical challenges associated with this style. At the same time, the composition was infused with extreme dynamics which rose to quite complex crescendos, interspersed with hauntingly lovely, slower passages. The final, glorious piece is very big, very showy, with tremendously contrasting passages; this certainly gave Mr. Grosvenor all the ammunition he needed to demonstrate his versatility and technical expertise.

The first half of the concert concluded with another Spanish-inspired work: Caprice Espagnol by Moritz Moszkowski, a German who lived in Paris for most of his life, but was tremendously influenced by Spain and things Spanish. This piece is illustrative of that passion, with, as the programme notes describe: 'decorative guitar-like melodic embellishments and flourishes' which provide its Iberian character. Dramatic and dazzling with very fast passages, this was an exciting performance which received enthusiastic cheers and the loudest applause of the first half of the concert.

Chopin, another child prodigy, was the composer for the second half, and it opened with the famous romance movement from his Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, arranged by Balakirev. This exquisite, meticulously crafted piece was really extremely moving in the hands of the young pianist. The gorgeous, yearning melody danced in his hands; it was almost impossible to believe that such a young person could infuse a performance with the emotion that he achieved with this.

Chopin's magnificent Sonata No. 3 in B minor was the last piece on the programme, and it came all too soon.

Composed during 1844, this work moves from its beautiful and extremely complex first movement, allegro maestoso, into a dazzling scherzo-molto vivace. The third movement is languorous and its pace deliberate with the opportunity for beautiful phrasing, and that opportunity was certainly embraced by the pianist. The concert concluded with Chopin's dramatic fourth movement, presto non tanto. Brilliantly executed by the pianist, the composer's unerring design for this movement ebbs and flows, but relentlessly builds tension towards its dramatic finish. Mr. Grosvenor's attention to the smallest interpretive detail, along with his mastery over the dynamics, made this his finest performance of the evening.

The delighted teenager received a wildly enthusiastic standing ovation from an ecstatic audience, and was encouraged to perform two encores: an ebullient rendition of Brahms' famous and delightful Hungarian Dance No. 5, and finally the perfect piece on which to conclude: Gershwin's light and lovely 'Love Walked In'.