Stephen Hough’s evocative first concerto
OrchestrasThe Anglo-Australian pianist Sir Stephen Hough will perform the world premiere of his first piano concerto, “The World of Yesterday,” with the Utah Symphony conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles on Friday, January 12 at Abravanel Hall, Salt Lake City. The program also includes Elgar’s Cockaigne (In London Town) and Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No. 5.
“The World of Yesterday” is founded on the pre-1914 memoir by Stefan Zweig. For Hough, the title invokes nostalgia and musical romance.
Zweig (below) committed suicide in Brazil, shortly after sending the book to his publisher in 1942.
The concerto’s European premiere will be given in Manchester by the Halle Orchestra, conducted by Sir Mark Elder, on May 15.
Image: The house where Zweig died
Anglo-Australian???
His father was born in Australia and Sir Stephen acquired Australian citizenship by descent from his father.
His father was born in Australia. Sir Stephen acquired Australian citizenship by descent through his father.
His father was Australian, and Hough himself became an Australian citizen in 2005. Doesn’t perform much in Australia though…
Who does? It’s one long, long flight and promoters want some variety in programming. The idea that he might perform there more often is just stupid!
Best wishes to Sir Stephen on the premiere of his concerto!
How evocative will it be, and in which way? He is a great pianist, but what is he as a composer?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8TZXmJgLow
He writes café music, alternated with eclectic serialism which has to be explained with a listening manual.
Or serious, pretentious mediocrity, like Hindemith’s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ea5PEUppi0
Or plain traditional, wholehearted mediocrity, sprinkled with café music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5A7bTPnong
At best, clever, but lacking any musical depth.
It seems better for performers to do what they are best in.
Try to write something which has only 10 percent of the depht,and craftmanship of Mr.Houghs music,instead of foulmouthing professional composers who get performed. Is this the only way for you to get some attention?
Dear little dragonfly: try to comment something which has only 10 percent of the depth, and craftmanship of music which was performed by the Dallas Symphony, the Hong Kong Phil, Orchestre National de Montpellier, Netherlands Symphony, etc. etc. and which had even (!) the critics praise it as ‘unashamedly beautiful’, ‘highlight of the evening’, etc. etc. – by whom? yes, indeed. But of course, you don’t know anything of that, so you resort to foulmouthing from under your little rock.
But to return to more serious matter: this is about criticism. How does one criticize music? My comment was aimed at the MUSIC of Mr Hough, which is public property, and not the man. Works of art may be criticized, as you think you did, but you made a quite poor job of it. If you want to criticize something, you should first spend some attention to it. And then, you should come-up with some evidence, as I did. I may have been entirely wrong, but that is OK as long as one takes the real stuff into consideration. Just spitting a bit gal from a corner will not do. Try again, and better!
Awww…..Evidence?????
As always,you´re dishing it out,but you can´t take it. You are the expert in spitting gal from a corner at colleageus who are ten times as good as you, and play an important role in the music world,which you don´t…Just BTW, the members of the Dallas SO and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic i know personally couldn´t even remember how your pieces were….They could remember very well ,and fondly, the works of your compatriots like Robin de Raaf, Jacob TV, Michel Van Der AA,Richard Rijnvos etc…
But to return to a serious matter: Type in your name on Google and click the News button..:6 pages of SD comments,that´s all.
You act up as an absolute authority on 20th and 21st century music..You are not.And this blog is the only podium you have. Neither are you a known size in academic circles.
What have you done? He’s sobbing for hours in a corner. Even the BBC 3 broadcast and his new book can’t cheer ‘m up
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001slzn
https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-5314-9
Sally
With an imprimatur by the late Roger Scruton, all other critics are pygmies.
Is this all? Among my many friends and colleagues over 44 years as a professional musician and teacher ,many of them very well known, the reaction is always “John Who?”.Even at the RCO,Rotterdam Phil,and NRPO..Strange. You didn´t make the cut,Sally. Sorry.
Yes, it’s all very difficult, isn’t it? Keep trying!
It is, especially when you suffer from artistic constipation and an absolute lack of interesting ideas and inspiration. But unlike you, I know my limitations, Sally.
I’ve missed your invective, John. Happy holidays!
Tastes differ. Varietas delectat.
“The World of Yesterday” is a wonderful book. Read it.
Agreed. It is one of the best books about premodernist Europe in existence. After reading it, you realize what has been lost, in spite of the many dark aspects of the time.
This book, while beautifully written, is afflicted with rose-tinted glasses. Somewhere in it, Zweig claimed never to have encountered any antisemitism, the chances of which, for someone who was 15 years old when Karl Lueger was elected mayor of Vienna in 1897, were vanishingly small. And for anyone who knows anything about antisemitism in Vienna post-1848, let alone post-1897 (election of Lueger), the claim is simply fantastical.
The antisemitism at the time in Vienna seems to have been mostly a matter of the lower classes, the circles where SZ moved in, did not indulge in such primitive thinking. It is known that Brahms, who moved in those circles earlier, was aghast to discover antisemitism outside his elite. See Carl Schorske’s impressive study ‘Fin-de-Siècle Vienna’:
https://www.amazon.nl/Fin-Siecle-Vienna-Politics-Pulitzer/dp/0394744780
The reason for this seems to be the same as with scapegoating today: people at the bottom of the economic ladder look for an explanation of their misery and find the ‘foreign element’.
If I remember well, there is a lot about anti-semitsm in Part 2.
Yes, so Zweig had really noticed it. One of the reasons he took his life in Brazil was that he discovered it also there, where he initially had hoped to find a truly multicultural society, a young vibrant country not infected with this absurd European mental disease.
Very much looking forward to this!! Good luck, Stephen!
Anglo-Austrian? Thought he came from the Wirral, Merseyside?????
There has been a grocery in the Wirral with a boss whose parents were immigrants from Gloggnitz.
Trying very hard to be funny…
It’s the weather…. due to climate change, stimulating the spread of insects at some places, looking for food, because they can’t find any
Still,not funny.I am afraid, your career as a comedian is also in tatters….
I read recently that Salzburg Airport has a counter dedicote to tourists who thunk they’d flown to Australia!
Yes, this photo of Stefan Zweig and his wife on their deathbed is well known. But do you have to show it again on a news channel and take away their dignity again after their suicide? That’s just lurid and pretty tasteless, Mr. Lebrecht. There could easily have been a different illustration.
Agreed.
Why? Suicide is a silly thing to do…
Writing moronic comments even more so.
You should know, for sure.
I remember that pianist John Ogden wrote an interesting piano concerto too
More recently Stewart Goodyear has written one and perhaps two piano concertos for himself to perform.
Trifonov also wrote a very interesting concerto
How nice that pianists are writing their own concertos again… so that we no longer have to listen to these of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, Prokofiev, Ravel and especially Rachmaninoff.
So did John Ogdon!
I have John Ogden’s recording of his own piano concerto, backed with Shostakovich’s second on an EMI/Angel LP. They are oddly complementary.
The Utah Symphony is a superb ensemble nowadays; Thierry Fischer’s 14-year tenure as music director accelerated that, but the musicians (many new ones) played a co-equal role.
Messiaen’s Canyons, with the Utah Symphony, released on Hyperion Records in April of this year, is an excellent record. Mahler’s Symphony No.8 on Reference Recordings is also notable. As an “audiophile” experience, “Switch,” Andrew Norman’s percussion concerto, also on Reference Recordings, is worth exploring.
It looks like Rune Bergmann may be a leading candidate for the next music director.
This concert program is scheduled to be led by Donald Runnicles, in his first appearance with the orchestra. I doubt that he is a candidate for the music director position. Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture is also on the program, along with the 5th Symphony of Vaughan Williams.
Stephen Hough appeared many times with the orchestra during Thierry Fischer’s tenure.
The Halle might record this concerto on its own commercial label, for future release.