Stephen Hough - Liszt: Sonata, Ballades & Polonaises

This is what great Liszt records are made of. A selection of his finest piano music, with his most important piano work coupled with less well-known masterpieces, played by a pianist who combines all the necessary fire and virtuosity with ultra-sensitivity and refinement. The B minor Sonata is one of the most important contributions to sonata form since Beethoven. Written as a single, expansive movement, utilizing Liszt's technique of thematic transformation, the Sonata is bold and forward-looking, and integrates enormous pianistic virtuosity into a profoundly original musical argument. Unusually for a composer who lavished poetic titles on so many of his works, revealing his literary or pictorial source of inspiration, Liszt said nothing about the B minor Sonata. Many believe it to be a portrayal of the characters in Goethe's Faust, others think it represents the different facets of Liszt's character. Truly great music can sustain a variety of interpretative responses, and Liszt's Sonata�one of the most powerful works to come out of the nineteenth century�is no exception. The remaining works, although their titles are inextricably associated with Chopin, are most striking for Liszt's daring originality. The Second Polonaise, which was recorded by Rachmaninov, used to be a great favourite, while the Second Ballade is one of Liszt's finest works, with a magnificent sense of narrative drive and some of Liszt's most opulent rhetoric. Stephen Hough needs little introduction as a Liszt pianist of extraordinary flair, passion and intelligence.