STEPHEN HOUGH — Stephen Hough's Spanish Album (2006) Two Version | APE + FLAC (image+.tracks+.cue), lossless

 Stephen Hough’s latest solo album takes us on a colourful tour of Spain and all things Spanish: a kaleidoscope of slants and angles on the soul and character of a once exotic and remote country.

Antonio Soler (whose innumerable sonatas were considered sufficiently outlandish to earn him the sobriquet ‘the devil dressed as a monk’) sets the scene for a sequence of impressionist wonders by Granados, Albéniz and Mompou (a disc of whose pianistic micro-masterpieces—CDA66963—won for Stephen Hough the 1998 Gramophone Instrumental Award), and Federico Longas’s insinuatingly virtuosic charmer Aragón.

Hough then allows outsiders a view into the magical kingdom. Debussy and Ravel peer longingly over the Pyrenees, while Godowsky, Scharwenka, Niemann and finally Hough himself are all in turn unable to resist this richest of cultural experiences.

Stephen Hough’s esoteric recital CDs rapidly acquire something of a cult status. Classic CD wrote of Stephen Hough’s New Piano Album CDA67043: ‘This is a terrific disc. A master pianist reminds us that the piano can delight, surprise and enchant’; while Classic FM Magazine welcomed Stephen Hough’s English Album CDA67267 saying: ‘Hough’s pianism is a constant source of wonder—every chord and phrase perfectly judged’. Hyperion 

The Spaniards    
1.    Sonata In F Sharp Major (Rubio Ed. No 90) 5:23
Composed By – Antonio Soler
2.    Valses Poéticos 11:27
Composed By – Enrique Granados
3.    Evocación (From Iberia Book I) 5:14
Composed By – Isaac Albéniz
4.    Triana (From Iberia Book II) 5:12
Composed By – Isaac Albéniz
5.    Pájaro Triste (From Impresiones Íntimas) 2:26
Composed By – Federico Mompou
6.    La Barca (From Impresiones Íntimas) 1:25
Composed By – Federico Mompou
7.    Secreto (From Impresiones Íntimas) 2:48
Composed By – Federico Mompou
8.    Gitano (From Impresiones Íntimas) 2:53
Composed By – Federico Mompou
9.    Aragon 4:39
Composed By – Federico Longas
The Frenchmen    
10.    La Soirée Dans Grenade (From Estampes) 5:23
Composed By – Claude Debussy
11.    La Sérénade Interrompue (From Préludes Book I) 2:34
Composed By – Claude Debussy
12.    La Puerta Del Vino (From Préludes Book II) 3:19
Composed By – Claude Debussy
13.    Pièce En Forme De Habanera 2:38
Arranged By – Maurice Dumesnil
Composed By – Maurice Ravel
The Others    
14.    Tango 2:49
Arranged By – Leopold Godowsky
Composed By – Isaac Albéniz
15.    Spanisches Ständchen Op 63 No 1 4:32
Composed By – Franz Xaver Scharwenka
16.    Evening In Seville Op 55 No 2 3:34
Composed By – Walter Niemann
17.    On Falla (2005) 4:43
Composed By – Stephen Hough
Credits :
Piano – Stephen Hough
Illustration [Front cover: 'Gazpacho' (Detail)] – Anthony Mastromatteo