Vida breve

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The sequence works well as a recital-like experience, and also as a vehicle for Hough’s comprehensive mastery of his art...The idiom of his own ‘Vida breve’ Sonata, with its cogent sweep and... — BBC Music Magazine, March 2021, 5 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 4 out of 5 stars (Recording) More…

Release Date: 29th Jan 2021
Catalogue No: CDA68260
Label: Hyperion
Length: 78 minutes

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Bach, J S: Partita for solo violin No. 2 in D minor, BWV1004: Chaconne

Work length15:09

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Stephen Hough (piano)

Chopin: Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor, Op. 35 'Marche funèbre'

Work length23:26

$4.40

$6.00

$8.20

Stephen Hough (piano)

I. Grave – Doppio movimento

Track length7:29

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

II. Scherzo

Track length6:37

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

III. Marche funèbre

Track length7:43

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

IV. Presto

Track length1:37

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Liszt: Funérailles (Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, S. 173 No. 7)

Work length11:10

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Stephen Hough (piano)

Liszt: Bagatelle sans tonalite, S216a c1885

Work length3:06

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Stephen Hough (piano)

Busoni: Sonatina No. 6 (Chamber Fantasy on Themes from Bizet's Carmen)

Work length8:24

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Stephen Hough (piano)

Hough: Piano Sonata No 4 'Vida breve'

Work length9:30

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Stephen Hough (piano)

anon.: Arirang

Work length1:49

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Stephen Hough (piano)

Gounod: Ave Maria

Work length5:27

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Stephen Hough (piano)

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Piano Sonatas by Chopin (No 2) and Hough (No 4) are the twin peaks of a typically stimulating recital which—as always from Stephen Hough—spans centuries and styles with assurance. How often do Liszt’s ‘Funérailles’ and Gounod’s ‘Ave Maria’ share the same programme?Life is nothing if not unpredictable.

Reviews

March 2021

The sequence works well as a recital-like experience, and also as a vehicle for Hough’s comprehensive mastery of his art...The idiom of his own ‘Vida breve’ Sonata, with its cogent sweep and flawlessly written fugato sections, is intriguingly difficult to pin down – somewhere between Busoni and Albéniz, perhaps?

February 2021

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.

March 2021

the Funeral March is grim and remorseless, an unflinching evocation of national and ceremonial grief. A hair-raising blend of mastery and imagination characterises the finale’s whirling diablerie. Similarly overwhelming is the central octave galop of Funérailles, where Liszt recalls the hoofbeats of the Polish cavalry he heard in Chopin’s A-flat Polonaise.

14th February 2021

Hough’s concept is death, starting with magisterial accounts of Busoni’s famous transcription of Bach’s Chaconne and continuing with Chopin’s Funeral March sonata and Liszt’s Funerailles. There’s a demonically witty glint in the last’s Bagatelle sans tonalité and in Busoni’s Chamber Fantasy.

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