Sir Stephen Hough. Lakeside, Nottingham. 28 November 2024, 5✩✩✩✩✩. Review: William Ruff.

Photo Credit: Sim Canetty-Clarke.

Sir Stephen Hough. Lakeside, Nottingham. 28 November 2024,

5✩✩✩✩✩. Review: William Ruff.

“A master pianist presents an exhilarating programme.”

I don’t think I was the only one secretly hoping that Sir Stephen Hough would play his version of the Mary Poppins hit Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious as an encore at his Lakeside recital on Thursday night – just as he had done at this year’s Last Night of the Proms.  But surely he wouldn’t on this occasion…because this was a proper recital with big, serious works by Schumann and Chopin?  But he did.  Of course, he did.  And we should have known that he would.

The reason: Sir Stephen’s multi-faceted musical personality, his delight in breaking down musical barriers and for encouraging the weightily intellectual to sit next to the joyfully entertaining. 

The fact that this season he is including the music of French composer Cécile Chaminade in his programmes bears this out.  She was hugely popular in her time (1857-1944) but her star faded and she became the epitome of Edwardian salon music, associated with the drawing-rooms of the well-heeled: good for nostalgic tunes but not much else.  Her  music is certainly nostalgic for Sir Stephen as he remembers his piano teacher playing her pieces to him.  He sees the reaction against Chaminade’s music as an example of musical snobbishness in a world which may have forgotten that many of the great composers (like Schumann and Chopin) wouldn’t have achieved much if they hadn’t been played in domestic settings.  And what’s more, Chaminade’s music is deliciously tuneful and well-crafted.  In Sir Stephen’s words: “She knew how to make the piano sparkle”.  He included three short pieces in this recital: Automne, Autrefois and Les Sylvains, showing that he knows how to make the piano sparkle too.

Hough’s own Sonatina Nostalgica balanced the Chaminade very well.  Written to celebrate the 70th birthday of fellow pianist Philip Fowke, its three very brief movements touchingly evoke places dear to Sir Stephen’s heart.  The second ‘The bench by the Dam’ takes its name from a bench which he installed in the village of Lymn to commemorate his parents.  Its gentle style (echoing the music of John Ireland) fits the bill perfectly.

The programme’s two major works were performed with the mastery for which Hough is renowned.  The Schumann Fantasie Op. 17 consists of three movements.  In the first Hough certainly followed its composer’s instructions: ‘to be performed throughout with imagination and passion’.  There’s a fast march in the middle and concludes with a slow song.  It’s an unusual pattern (and one which encourages an unsuspecting audience to break into wild applause in the wrong place!).  Hough gave a performance of immense architectural strength, as always in total command of fine detail as well as overall design.

The same can be said of Chopin’s Sonata No 3 whose finale was a spectacular way to end the recital, with its high-octane, turbulent first theme and the fierce resolve of its second.  The ending (the pianist’s hands lost in a blur as fistfuls of notes are thrown to the audience) could hardly have been more triumphantly exhilarating. 

And then there were two encores: Sir Stephen’s own hilarious, super-virtuoso Mary Poppins number mentioned above and the delicate Vogel als Prophet from Schumann’s Waldszenen.  They ended a recital every bit as enjoyable as everyone present knew it would be.

 Sir Stephen Hough (piano)