Favorites: Stephen Hough

My whole life is absorbed with music. You know, I play it. I practice, I perform, I compose. I think about it all the time – but I don’t listen to it very much. So, if I had to pick a piece of music to listen to, I’d be hard pressed to because I almost never just sit down and listen to music. I have music going on in my brain and my ears the whole day and night.

So, in choosing a favorite piece what comes to mind is the music that I’m actually engaged with physically playing. And the piece I’d choose among all the hundreds of pieces that I love, like my children, is the Brahms First Piano Concerto. I think probably of all the piano concertos that I play – and we’re talking about 40 or so different ones over the years – this is the work that I couldn’t live without.

“It’s got excitement, tenderness, rage, passion, and a darkness-to-light narrative, culminating in a glorious, radiant sunrise.“

To me it has the most depth. It’s one of those pieces that’s like a book that you can read many, many times. Some of the concertos I play are fabulous, but maybe I wouldn’t want to be dealing with them every season. But I feel that a season without playing Brahms’ First has something lacking.

And that’s for many reasons. It’s like a symphony for the piano and orchestra. Indeed, it began life in Brahms’ head as a symphony. It’s got excitement, tenderness, rage, passion, and a darkness-to-light narrative, culminating in a glorious, radiant sunrise. And it’s a huge chunk – a good 50 minutes of music – so it makes a big statement whenever you play it.

So, I would offer that: I’d offer the Brahms First Piano Concerto Opus 15. I’ve recorded it three times now, twice commercially for CD and then once for Deutsche Grammophon’s STAGE+ streaming platform, which was just a couple of years ago. It’s been a part of my life since the beginning of my career.

And if you were to ask me, ‘What’s the second piece you couldn’t live without?’ I’d probably choose Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto… I’m always debating which I prefer. That was a piece I got to know when I was a kid. It was just a record that my father bought by chance from the local record shop. I listened to it and fell in love with it. The First Concerto came a little bit later. But then I learned it and began playing it and I’ve been playing it ever since.

Stephen’s memoir, Enough: Scenes from Childhood (Faber & Faber) is out now