Sir Stephen Hough

Sir Stephen Hough makes a long-awaited return to St George’s to perform a dazzlingly eclectic programme, including music from Mary Poppins.

In a career spanning over 40 years, Hough has played regularly with most of the world’s leading orchestras, including televised and filmed appearances with the Berlin, London, China, Seoul and New York Philharmonic Orchestras. He is a prolific recording artist with over 70 recording to his name, and a genuine polymath – not only a distinguished pianist, but composer, writer and novelist.

Tonight’s programme celebrates shorter piano pieces. The genre flourished throughout the 19th century, roughly in tandem with the developing middle-classes and their love affair with their domestic musical machine. Evenings would have seemed long and living rooms empty without this forerunner to the 20th century’s home entertainment systems. So it followed that music needed to be written to satisfy the insatiable demands of the ever-growing numbers of amateur pianists. Composers obliged and millions of copies flew off the shelves into homes across the world. The greatest composers – many featured tonight – raised the game by writing short pieces of supreme beauty and profundity.

Programme

Schubert Klavierstück No 2 D946
Brahms Klavierstuck Op 118, No 6
Schoenberg 6 Kleine Klavierstücke Op 19
Stockhausen Klavierstück III
Beethoven Bagatelle Op 119 No 10
Beethoven Sonata Op 53 (Waldstein)

Interval

Schumann Carnaval Op 9
Sherman/Hough Mary Poppins Suite, Chim Chim Cheree, Feed the Birds, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious