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Once more Hyperion is proud to champion music that has little seen the light of day in the shadow of the greats. Hummel was revered in his lifetime not only ahead of those we call the greats today but by the greats of his day, Schumann, Liszt, Chopin and Mendelssohn among them. Hummel's unjust posthumous neglect lasted until only very recently. Never having been content with a repertoire of warhorses, Hough has throughout his career made a point of playing Hummel, who’s music of such fresh imagination pre-echoes more familiar music. Chopin in particular was happy to use ideas prompted by Hummel's example. We are at the bridge between the classical and the romantic styles and Hough's instinctively virile elegance brings out the sense of adventure that is at the heart of Hummel's vibrant imagination. A disc to explore and re-visit.
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CLASSICAL CD OF THE WEEK (The Sunday Times)
'Stephen Hough turns his attention to the three most compelling of Hummel’s five mature solo piano sonatas. The F sharp minor, Op 81, and D major, Op 106, from 1819 and 1824, are large-scale works, revelling in an early-Romantic virtuosity that was to attract both Chopin and Liszt. The four-movement Op 106 is a huge creation of dramatic rhetorical gestures, while the much earlier F minor sonata, Op 20 (1807), gives a taste of the youthful Hummel’s exuberantly Haydnesque style. Hough proves a dazzling advocate for all three works.' (The Sunday Times)
'I doubt whether anyone today could play these sonatas better than Stephen Hough, who spins an exquisitely limpid cantabile, has an instinctive understanding of the rubato crucial to this style, and keeps the textures marvellously lucid ... If you want to explore these brilliant, intriguingly diverse sonatas, this fabulous disc is the one to go for' (BBC Music Magazine)
'I have no hesitation in according this CD the highest marks' (Fanfare, USA)
'...no composer could ask for a better champion. His playing is fierce, sharply etched and eloquent throughout, with an emphasis on the formal balances that set this music teetering on the edge betwen Mozartean symmetry and the fiery impulsiveness of the Romantics' (San Fransisco Chronicle)
'No matter how difficult the music, Stephen Hough's effortless technique and eloquent, characterful musicality make everything sound easy' (Classicstoday.com)
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