Stephen Hough - In the Night

This latest recital album by �the thinking person�s virtuoso: an extraordinary pianist� (The New York Times) takes the listener on a journey through that most intense and absorbing of nineteenth-century obsessions, the night. The Romantic night was one without sleep; where experiences are mutated through darkness. Stephen Hough�s thoughtful programming creates a new aural sphere for some of the most celebrated piano works in the repertoire.Hough begins with Schumann�s troubled, reeling �In der Nacht� from Fantasiestucke, and continues with Beethoven�s �Moonlight� Sonata and Chopin�s two Op 27 Nocturnes.With Schumann�s Carnaval we eavesdrop on one of the most vibrant parties in the nineteenth-century piano literature, with its panoply of brilliantly etched character sketches depicting both real people�such as Chopin and Paganini�and imaginary ones. Each movement is vividly contrasted; there are moments of unbridled ecstasy, elegant poise and elusive subtlety.Also included is Stephen Hough�s own Piano Sonata No 2 �notturno luminoso�, which he describes as �about a different kind of night � the brightness of a brash city in the hours of darkness; the loneliness of pre-morning; sleeplessness and the dull glow of the alarm clock�s unmoving hours; the irrational fears which are only darkened by the harsh glare of a suspended, dusty light bulb'.