Stephen Hough's Piano Postcards

Richard Sherman & Robert Sherman arr. Stephen Hough Mary Poppins Suite Chim chim cher-ee; Feed the birds; Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious; Abram Chasins Prelude in E flat minor, Op 12 No 2; Rachmaninov; Prelude in G sharp minor, Op 32 No 12; Fritz Kreisler arr Rachmaninov Liebesleid; Rimsky-Korsakov arr Rachmaninov The flight of the bumblebee; Deng Yu-Hsien arr. Stephen Hough Spring breeze prelude; Kōsaku Yamada arr. Stephen Hough Aka tombo; Robert Lopez & Kristen Anderson-Lopez, arr. Stephen Hough Do you want to build a snowman? from Frozen; Remember me from Coco; Matthew Wilder & David Zippel , arr. Stephen Hough Reflection from Mulan; Quirino Mendoza y Cortés arr. Stephen Hough Cielito lindo; Enrique Granados; Andaluza (Playera) No 5 of Danzas españolas, Op 37; Handel arr. Wilhelm Kempff Minuet in G minor, HWV 434/4; Cécile Chaminade Toccata, Op 39 ; Thème varié in A major, Op 89 ; Les sylvains, Op 60; Léo Delibes Passepied No 6 of Scène du bal dans Le roi s’amuse; Malcolm Williamson Flower-sellers (Place de la Madeleine) No 2 of Travel Diaries – Paris; Broadway (Midnight) No 5 of Travel Diaries – New York; Sibelius Étude in A minor; No 2 of 13 Pieces, Op 76;Eden Ahbez, arr. Stephen Hough Nature boy; Edward MacDowell To a wild rose No 1 of Woodland Sketches, Op 51; Schumann Vogel als Prophet No 7 of Waldszenen, Op 82; Christian Sinding Rustle of Spring No 3 of Six Pieces, Op 32

Stephen Hough piano
Hyperion CDA68469
https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/

Picture yourself somewhere impossibly exotic — a cocktail sweating gently in your hand, the bar hushed, and in the corner a pianist who has, without anyone quite noticing, stopped time. That is the spell Stephen Hough casts across this disc, and from the very first bars you understand that you are not so much listening as being taken somewhere.

He opens with his own arrangement of three songs from Sherman's score for Mary Poppins, and the charm is immediate and disarming. Chim Chim Cher-ee is simply delightful — an earworm, yes, but 'bug' feels the wrong word for something arranged with such loving craft. Feed the Birds unfolds in a long, languorous line that carries the listener somewhere else entirely, its trills and decorations enchanting, every phrase touched with real charisma. Then Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious arrives in staccato flurries and glissandos, tying the suite together with something close to genius. One can only think: I wish I were there.

What a pianist, and — as this disc keeps insisting — what an arranger. Everything here is a miniature, a taster, and there is so much to love. Hough's touch, his phrasing, his dynamic control: all much written about before, and none of it undersold on this evidence. Kreisler/Rachmaninov's Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen No. 2, "Liebesleid," is delightful, its espressivo caught, at moments, in little more than a breath.

Elsewhere you find yourself chasing The Flight of the Bumblebee through a virtuosic seventy seconds; Hough's own arrangement of Yamada's Aka Tombo luxuriates in the lower register, rich with harmonic warmth; Do You Want to Build a Snowman? from Frozen is arranged with equal delight, and Lopez's Remember Me from Coco is simply delicious.

You will be utterly captured by Handel's Minuet in G minor, arranged by Kempff — music that seems to stop time in the telling of it, slowing the room down around you. There is not a weak track here. By Paris you might imagine yourself at the Place de la Madeleine, before Williamson sweeps you off to Broadway at midnight. It is all, unashamedly, escapism — and among the loveliest moments is MacDowell's To a Wild Rose, delicate as a petal wavering in a gentle breeze. The orchestral richness Hough draws from these arrangements is remarkable; he conjures a verdant soundscape from ten fingers alone.

Hough's lyricism is captivating throughout — warm, generous playing from a pianist who understands that a postcard, once, told you where to add to your bucket list. I'm not sure what the modern equivalent is. Perhaps just: go there.

The journey ends with Sinding's Rustle of Spring, and as our own summer draws in and the autumn storms gather, Hough leaves us on a note of quiet optimism — spring, after all, always comes round again.

As Hough himself writes: "'Postcards' suggest many things for me: travel, of course, greetings sent across the seas, 'wish you were here'; but also writing to someone from home, a few words often meaning more than they say. The musical amuse-bouche can contain profound poetry, or wit and whimsy, whether subtle or raucous… all on one oblong card."