Johannes BRAHMS
Sonata no.3 in f, op.5, 4 Ballades, op.10
Stephen Hough (piano)
Hyperion CDA67237
[59.19]
Crotchet
AmazonUK
AmazonUS
I found the very beginning of the Sonata a little perplexing. In the pervasive
dotted rhythms Hough is not strong-fingered enough with the little notes
(truth to tell, there are no little notes in Brahms). However, this
first impression was misleading and it quickly became evident that he has
a very strong feeling for the harmonic movement of the music and, above all,
is able to present the most complex textures as a completely natural dialogue
between parts, with each strand ideally weighed and coloured in relation
to the others. The many lyrical passages are wholly convincing. What I do
find is that in the tougher moments, the Scherzo and parts of the Finale,
the performance lacks something in sheer "go". It's an admirable conception
that perhaps needed the stimulus of a live audience to give it that last
touch of ardour needed to bind it all together (the final pages show that
he certainly can let fly when he is in the mood). But I don't want to make
too much of this in view of such very fine playing, nor of the fact that
a Steinway recorded in the Henry Wood Hall by Messrs. Hatch and Keener might
have been expected to have a shade more bloom, pleasant though the sound
undoubtedly is.
However, the simpler structures of the Ballades seem to engage Hough more
fully. There is no lack of ardour in no.3 and his finely textured pianism
demonstrates throughout that Brahms is not gruff and bottom-heavy if you
don't make him so. These are most successful performances, and extremely
rewarding ones. They leave me thinking that Hough would be ideally suited
to Brahms's late piano pieces and I hope he will give us a disc of opp.116-119
before too long.
Christopher Howell
