Stephen Hough's Mozart Album
Intimate moments to barn-storming bravura, Hough is totally satisfying
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Stephen Hough, Franz Liszt, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ignaz Friedman, Johann Baptist Cramer
Label: Hyperion
Magazine Review Date: 4/2008
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 70
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: CDA67598
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Fantasia |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Stephen Hough, Piano Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
Sonata for Piano No. 13 |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
Stephen Hough, Piano Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer |
Hommage à Mozart |
Johann Baptist Cramer, Composer
Johann Baptist Cramer, Composer Stephen Hough, Piano |
Menuetto |
Ignaz Friedman, Composer
Ignaz Friedman, Composer Stephen Hough, Piano |
(3) Mozart Transformations (after Poulenc) |
Stephen Hough, Composer
Stephen Hough, Composer Stephen Hough, Piano |
Fantasia on themes from Mozart's Figaro and Don Gi |
Franz Liszt, Composer
Franz Liszt, Composer Stephen Hough, Piano |
Author: Jeremy Nicholas
Opening with two of Mozart’s solo masterpieces, the ear is welcomed into an intimate, pellucid sound world with a sophisticated grading of dynamics. Hough plays with what used to be called “a quiet hand”, particularly effective in the first movement of the B flat major Sonata in which he finds an unexpected melancholy amid the music’s basically optimistic character.
After the dramatic second (earlier) C minor Fantasia completed by Stadler, and Cramer’s attractive Etude, Op 103 No 6, we seem to be listening to a different pianist who now relishes the delicate, perfumed harmonies of Friedman’s Menuetto transcription. In the same vein, but imbued with witty Poulencian devices, Hough the pianist-composer reminds us how important charm is to the pianist’s arsenal. Again, the pianist changes. This time we hear a barn-storming virtuoso in the Liszt-Busoni Fantasy on “Non più andrai” and “Voi che sapete” from The Marriage of Figaro. More fragmentary than the better-known Don Giovanni Fantasy and not quite as effective, it nevertheless provides a hair-raising bravura display that deserves to be heard more often. At least, when played like this.
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