Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Grieg & Liszt: Piano Concertos


'There are so many recordings of all three of these works that it's fair to ask: can we really be doing with any more? Yes, if they're in this kind of intriguing and appealing class … Hough's scintillating expertise is complemented by Andrew Litton and the orchestra's engaging and live-wire support … [Grieg] It's a credit both to them and to the music itself that it sounds so fresh here, while Hough finds new loveliness in it without ever descending into point-making. A pleasing and … thought-provoking release' --BBC Music Magazine




GRAMOPHONE CHOICE
THE SUNDAY TIMES CLASSICAL CD OF THE WEEK
INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW 'OUTSTANDING' AWARD
INTERNATIONAL PIANO CHOICE

'Stephen Hough continues to bemuse as a pianist so free from difficulty that he can soar, inflect and alter the course of a musical argument at the drop of a hat … He expresses a personality all his own, brilliantly alert to mercurial changes of mood and clearly riding on the crest of a wave of success. With technique honed to a state of diamond-like brilliance, he gives us rapier-like cadenzas and glissandos that flash like summer lightning' --Gramophone

'Time and again, Hough's traversals of familiar works are played with such insight, probity and sage musical understanding that we feel almost as if we are hearing them for the first time … [Grieg] Each phrase is shaped with the utmost refinement within an exquisitely fluid tempo that is perfectly matched by Litton and his musicians … This full-blown, go-for-broke, unapologetically Romantic approach yields one of the most intensely dynamic, emotionally authentic readings of this score we are likely to hear for some time … Stephen Hough's steady ascent to the summit of his profession exhibits equally supreme mastery of his instrument and the deep humanity from which it has flowered' --International Record Review





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