Power-drill trills on the keyboard

By WILLIAM DART

Stephen Hough has "had a wonderful time in Australia", with reviews suggesting that audiences enjoyed the pianist's visit as much as he did.

The Sydney Morning Herald's Peter McCallum waxed the deepest shade of purple after Hough's recital, concluding this was "playing which mesmerised the ear with rich imaginative worlds and hitherto unknown vistas of colour".

Aucklanders are able to have more than their fair share of the English pianist over the next week or so, both in person and on disc.

Hough seems genuinely surprised that his new Hyperion CD of Rachmaninov's works for piano and orchestra is already available in this country.

Recorded with the Dallas Symphony under Andrew Litton, this is Rachmaninov with a difference. Hough admits that "the fact that it was recorded live made it unusual enough to consider it for CD. Hyperion is the sort of label that has to feel that each project has something special about it".

The set was recorded over three weeks in Dallas' superb Eugene McDermott Concert Hall, "once the orchestra stopped being embarrassed about all the portamentos, which are in the very blood of the music", adds Hough.

There was some disapproval, too, of the cover image which shows the composer at the keyboard, complete with cigarette. "They kicked up a big fuss over that," laughs Hough, "but I like the way that he has a certain Noel Coward look instead of always looking like a Russian convict."

Hough confesses that he doesn't like recording, "but today when 95 per cent of the classical music audience listen to recordings, you can't pursue that stand. I like the fact that recordings catch what I feel about the pieces at that moment, and I'm glad that those performances didn't just disappear in the air".

Saint-Saens' Fourth Piano Concerto is on the bill when Hough appears with the NZSO in Hamilton on Thursday and in Auckland on Friday. He has already recorded this composer's complete works for piano and orchestra, and is a fervent enthusiast. Phrases such as "thrilling journey from darkness to light" and "power-drill trill" pepper his comments.

He points out that Saint-Saens has a virtual monopoly on the French romantic piano concerto and, noting the composer's sense of humour, warns me that "there are quite a few outrageous moments. When Pascal Tortelier and I got to one jaunty theme, he just dropped the score and roared with laughter".

Next Friday, Aucklanders have another opportunity to hear Hough in that most privileged of settings, "a solo recital" through the auspices of Chamber Music New Zealand. For Hough this is his paramount activity as a pianist because "it's the craft of playing. There are thousands of nuances here that would have no place in the concerto."

"There's a lot of whispering in this programme," Hough confides, "the Spanish music is full of half lights and mysterious little implications."

The advertising for the concert offers "Spanish sun and Viennese charm" although they're not presented in that order. "It's really two contrasting short recitals," explains Hough. "The first has two sonatas: Schubert at his most serene, almost without a cloud, preceded by the writhing chromaticism of the Berg."

Despite the intensity of the Berg, Hough assures me that it won't be "too angst-ridden. It's almost a waltz, and as much from the Vienna of Johann Strauss as the Vienna of Freud".

The second half of the programme does make it across the Pyrenees, although Hough is quick to point out that Granados' Valses Poeticas is a tribute to Schubert. "There's heavy Southern Spanish, the quaint picture-postcard Spain of Moskowski's Caprice Espagnol and French composers like Debussy who can be more Spanish than the real thing."

Performance

*Who: Stephen Hough with the NZSO

*Where and when: Founders Theatre, Hamilton, Thursday 8pm; Auckland Town Hall, Friday 6.30pm; Stephen Hough in recital, Auckland Town Hall Concert Chamber, Friday September 24 8pm