Gramophone Magazine
February 2021
Editor's Choice

Stephen Hough (piano)

Bach, J S: Partita for solo violin No. 2 in D minor, BWV1004: Chaconne
Chopin: Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor, Op. 35 'Marche funèbre'
Liszt: Funérailles (Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, S. 173 No. 7)
Liszt: Bagatelle sans tonalite, S216a c1885
Busoni: Sonatina No. 6 (Chamber Fantasy on Themes from Bizet's Carmen)
Hough: Piano Sonata No 4 'Vida breve'
anon.: Arirang
Gounod: Ave Maria

"To call this a concept album would be to diminish its power and timeliness. It is both a meditation on the fragility of life and a Bergmanesque game of chess with Death, for which Hough has laid out his pieces and pawns in a masterstroke of programming...Two of Hough’s own arrangements, of a Korean traditional song and of Gounod/Bach, are at once transcendental and defiant: checkmate Death." - Gramophone Magazine, February 2021.