In the realm of piano rarities and off-the-beaten-track fare, Stephen Hough’s brilliant pianism and probing musicianship often yield reference results. Yet I’ve often found his recordings of so-called “standard” repertoire curiously uneven, such as the present release devoted to Chopin’s Ballades and Scherzos. On the whole, the Ballades come off best in sections requiring power, stamina, and sweep. Like Ivan Moravec, Hough conveys the full measure of the Second Ballade’s tumultuous undercurrents and Fourth Ballade’s taxing coda while still keeping the lines crystal clear. Yet the former’s introspective opening seems pallid and less meticulously voiced in comparison to Murray Perahia’s fuller-toned reading. Similarly, Perahia finds a wider array of phrase shapings and nuances in the First Ballade that make Hough’s equally fluent execution sound more generalized and less specific, despite his fondness for unexpected accents and momentary inner voices. But Hough’s Third Ballade is as strong, direct, and tastefully nuanced as the catalog’s finest versions.
Hough’s brisk tempos and pinpointed articulation in the First Scherzo’s outer sections match Sviatoslav Richter’s colossal workmanship. On the repeat of the first section’s second theme, Hough makes a huge, unwritten, and not entirely convincing ritard that stops the music in its tracks. Hough uncovers a wealth of real and implied countermelodies within the Second Scherzo’s left-hand accompaniments, but I miss the dynamic heft and rhythmic focus that make Claudio Arrau’s more measured pace actually sound faster than Hough. Hough tinkers with the Fourth Scherzo’s basic pulse to the point where rhythmic liberty spills over into rudderless imprecision (notice, for example, how the triplet pattern in bar 11 and similar places sometimes emerges as a duplet). The opposite, however, holds true for Hough’s far tighter and positively demonic account of the Third Scherzo that may well give Martha Argerich a run for her money. Hough’s unrelenting intensity spills over into the Trio, where he eschews most pianists’ habit of lingering over the main “How Dry I Am” theme and simply plays it straight, as Chopin wrote it. Ironically, perhaps, it’s in such moments where Hough least “interprets” that his individual voice truly manifests itself.
