35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Incredible!, January 11, 2001
This review is from: The Piano Album (Audio CD)
I am a pianophile and longtime record collector, and this is one of the most awe-inspiring recordings I have ever heard. Stephen Hough's pianism - and I don't mean to be hyperbolic - simply exhausts all adjectives one might try to use to describe it. This is the kind of album to listen to not so much for the music (though these are charming and now-rarely heard pieces) but for the artistry of the performer. For stunning virtuosity, listen to the final measures of the Moszowski piece or to the MacDowell; for rich tone and melting legato listen to Hough's own transcriptions of the two Roger Quilter songs. Out of hundreds of CDs I have heard, this is one of my absolute favorites - and a steal at the price. Stephen Hough is the modern day Cortot, Gieseking, Rachmaninoff, and Joseph Levine, for he has it all - drama, precision, color, intellect, raw strength, and yes - delicacy. I rarely make recommendations like this, but you absolutely must hear this recording.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Virtuoso Piano Album! (But Not So Great Track Listings), August 20, 2010
This review is from: The Piano Album (Audio CD)
The other reviewers have already given a pretty good assessment of this 2-CD album of Stephen Hough doing what he does best: playing the hell out of the piano. The 40 mostly quite short pieces provide a good cross-section of piano virtuosity from the compositional perspectives of greats, near-greats, and a few lesser lights. Not the least among them is the pianist himself, represented by some of his song transcriptions.
The disks are generous in quantity as well as quality: each CD holds over an hour of music. They were recorded digitally in London, New York, and Manchester in 1986, 1987, and 1991. The one-page English liner notes by Adélaïde de Place, translated by Hugh Graham, are fine as far as they go, but offer only a brief sketch of the music's background. The track listings are poor: often confusing and entirely incorrect in at least one case. Track 4 attributes The Lotus Tree arrangement by Hough to Ernö von Dohnányi [sic], who had nothing to do with it. The following Capriccio, however, is indeed his work. (And by the way, it's either Ernö Dohnányi in Hungarian--where the last name really ought to come first--or Ernst von Dohnányi in its more common Germanic form.)
Still, I easily give the album the full five stars for its unique assemblage of short virtuoso piano pieces played excellently and recorded in fine sound. It's a valuable asset to the piano music lover's audio collection.
The correct track listing for CD 1 is as follows.
1. MacDowell: Hexentanz
2. Chopin, arr. Liszt: The Maiden's Wish [Zyczenie]
3. Quilter, arr. Hough: Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal
4. Quilter, arr. Hough: The Fuchsia Tree
5. Dohnányi: Capriccio in F Minor
6. Paderewski: Minuet in G
7. Paderewski: Nocturne
8. de Schlözer: Etude in A-Flat Major
9. Gabrilovich: Mélodie in E
10. Gabrilovich: Caprice-Burlesque
11. Rodgers, arr. Hough: My Favorite Things
12. Woodforde-Finden, arr. Hough: Kashmiri Love Song ("Pale Hands...)
13. Friedman: Musical Box
14. Saint-Saëns, arr. Godowski: The Swan (Le Cygne)
15. Rosenthal: Les Papillons (Butterflies)
16. Godowski: The Gardens of the Buitenzorg
17. Levitzky: Waltz
18. Palmgren: En Route
19. Moszkowski: Siciliano
20. Moszkowski: Caprice Espagnol
P.S. Two especially virtuosic piano pieces are not present: Balakirev's Islamey and Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit. The former has often been cited as the most difficult piano piece, and the latter was reportedly an attempt to outdo the former in difficulty. The Ravel piece is too long in its entirety for inclusion here, but Islamey would probably fit. The de Schlözer Étude (track 8) has also been cited for its great difficulty.
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19 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
overly rich nostalgic pieces and particles of the piano, January 5, 2001
This review is from: The Piano Album (Audio CD)
This is music that seems to have lapsed into a forgotten time warp, like when you open that old wood truck in the attic to find odd bits and particles,objects,dolls and photographs that immediately transports you into another fantasia place. That's what this music does. Hough has selected for the most part fast filigreed,rapid cascades and ribbons of pieces. Each however has its own narrative,its own special tale to reveal, a special musical texture,an endearing melody. Needless to say most of the composers here are those you've never heard before,like Ignaz Friedman, whose "Music Box" is not what you think, yes it has that timbre of forever moving tickly tones,for a ballerina popping out of a ceramic box. But there is a large pallette of sophistication here as well with the unique timbre of the piano. Every piece does this admirably. The Hexentanz of MacDowell (arr.Liszt) is a helter-skelter piece never stopping,scaling the upper regions of the keyboard,and this would be an encore work. It keeps you on the edge of your upholstered chair.Leoplold Godowsky is not an unfamiliar name,he is a specialist in the art of the arragement trying to capture a timbre, and here in Camille Saint-Saens forever memorable "Swan"the final days of post-romantic Louis Napoleon the Third era is handled with just a few more ripples in the pond than before almost imperceptible.
When played in consecutive order all these works I found myself bored,this music inhabits such a rich timbral world that it's message overspends itself, overspills into the next work. A modernist voice of Lowell Lieberman is here, a postmodern specialist in this genre of the new tonality, or the past revisited. Proust taught us the rich chasms of remembering, and the process of reoccurence of time returning in differnt guises. Lieberman's "Gargoyles" has its own sardonic charm.,equally at home compliasant with his timbral brethren.
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