Listening to this collection of miniatures by English composers is akin to passing a pleasant afternoon in a small gallery run by a fastidious, knowledgable, and quietly enthusiastic curator. These adjectives define Stephen Hough’s scrupulous, full-bodied, and technically impeccable performances. He revels in the sensuous harmonic felicities that color Stephen Reynolds’ pastiches and makes an easy task of York Bowen’s fustian textures cut from the cloth of Rachmaninov and Medtner. Of Hough’s two “Ravel-meets-Gerswhin-meets-Sondheim” Waltzes, the second holds more mystery and substance. Alan Rawsthorne’s terse neo-classic style will please listeners who respond to like-minded craftsmen from this side of the pond such as Piston and Barber. Kenneth Leighton’s serious, substantial Study-Variations provide plenty of grist for Hough’s virtuosic mill: crackling, Bartókian call-and-response flourishes, gnarly Messiaen color chords at all tempos, and (in the third movement), haunting steel-colored repeated phrases that journey in slow motion from the middle register to treble and bass extremes. If you tend toward piano music’s less beaten paths, this disc’s for you. [7/20/2002]
