Stephen Hough
Stephen Hough who plays
for Pollok House Arts Society on 4th December has
played at the Proms five times this year, twice more
than any other soloist. This is clear evidence of the
respect with which the music world holds him. Here is
part of an article that appeared in the Times.
Quietly and unfussily the Cheshire-born pianist
Stephen Hough has conquered the music world. Russian
virtuosi come and go in a whirl of hammered octaves.
American whiz-kids dazzle briefly then fizzle away.
From the Far East an endless parade of mercurial
youths flit like butterflies over the ivories without
ever ruffling the soul. Hough’s progress, by
contrast, has been so stealthy that when Gramophone
magazine and readers of The Times recently anointed
his mesmerising Hyperion recording of the five
Saint-Saëns piano concertos as the best classical CDs
of the past 30 years (beating Karajan, Rattle, et
al), the reaction in some musical households must
have been “Stephen Hoo?”
Yet his rise continues, with a unique accolade by the
Proms. In the coming season the 47-year-old will play
all four Tchaikovsky piano concertos — starting on
the First Night with No 3. So the obvious first
question is: why does almost everybody know No 1, and
almost nobody know the other three? Is there a
rational reason?
read
the rest of the article…