Stephen Hough - Johann Nepomuk Hummel: Piano Sonatas (2003)

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Stephen Hough - Johann Nepomuk Hummel: Piano Sonatas (2003)

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Stephen Hough - Johann Nepomuk Hummel: Piano Sonatas (2003)

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The three sonatas Stephen Hough has selected for this recital not only reveal Johann Nepomuk Hummel as a plausible "missing link" between Beethoven and Chopin, but also as a formidable, creative force in his own right. Maybe he's not so memorable a melodist as Chopin nor a protean architect on the level of Beethoven, but Hummel's piano writing still sounds idiomatic and invigorating to modern ears. It's also quite difficult. The F-sharp minor sonata's dramatic finale, for instance, allows little respite from its unrelenting broken octaves, taxing runs, and double notes, while the gnarly dotted rhythms, imitative writing, and thick chords permeating the D major sonata's Scherzo evoke the Schumann to come.

No matter how difficult the music, Stephen Hough's effortless technique and eloquent, characterful musicality make everything sound easy. What's more, he never sacrifices power for speed. Listen for example to the way he gives the challenging, spiraling triplets in the F minor sonata's finale their full dynamic due, maintaining a full, tonally varied sonority with virtually no help from the sustain pedal. In sum, it will take a heap of work and tons of inspiration for future pianists to match Hough's reference standards here. This is a valuable release and a joyous listening experience all in one: don't miss it.

Review by Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

This splendid issue is in its way as revelatory as Stephen Hough’s Gramophone Award-winning recordings of the piano concertos (Nos 2 and 3, Chandos, 4/87) by this long-neglected composer and Richard Hickox’s similarly Award-winning disc of Masses for Chandos. Hough revels in the element of display which Hummel, one of the leading pianists of his day, must have brought out in his own performances. Hae-won Chang on Naxos gives tasteful, well-mannered performances, which next to Hough’s seem seriously under-characterised.

The three works here are arguably the most interesting of Hummel’s nine solo sonatas. The most radical is No 5, with the composer in 1819 enthusiastically throwing himself behind the new Romantic movement. A strikingly angular opening motif leads to an argument which, in a very free rendering of sonata form, brings surges of energy set against moments of reflection; there are many unexpected melodic and harmonic twists and few passages of conventional figuration, such as those that weaken the piano concertos. The slow movement, too, opens surprisingly – with a heavyweight fortissimo gesture – before settling down to a yearning melody, anticipating Chopin’s Nocturnes but more bare in texture, with cantilena echoing bel canto opera. The finale is a wild Slavonic dance, fierce and energetic in headlong flight, again dotted with unexpectedly angular ideas.

In the Sixth Sonata in 1824 Hummel was rowing back from the romantic stance of Op 81. The first movement establishes a much lighter tone and is more conventional in structure, exceptionally clear in its presentation of sonata-form. The opening theme, for all its lightness of texture, has characteristically quirky twists, and leads to a warmly lyrical second subject, rather like Weber. The second movement Scherzo, the most striking of the four, is a fast mazurka, leading to a slow movement rather like a Mendelssohn Song without Words and a virtuoso finale, light in texture at the start and ending, after all the display, in an unexpected throwaway cadence.

Sonata No 3 in F minor, dating from 1807, again starts gently before developing quirks typical of Hummel. The slow movement then surprisingly has the marking Maestoso, majestic, strong and forthright rather than conventionally lyrical, leading to another virtuoso finale, relatively brief, with crosshand, Scarlatti-like leaps for the left hand. Though the other Hummel piano sonatas – including four for piano duet – may not be as interesting as these, one hopes that Hough will follow this first issue with more of them.

Review by Edward Greenfield, Gramophone

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Stephen Hough - Johann Nepomuk Hummel: Piano Sonatas (2003)

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Stephen Hough - Johann Nepomuk Hummel: Piano Sonatas (2003)

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Stephen Hough - Johann Nepomuk Hummel: Piano Sonatas (2003)

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