Stephen Hough, Royal Festival Hall, London — drawn into an alluring world

In case anyone has failed to notice, this year is the centenary of the death of that great French visionary, Claude Debussy. The pianist Stephen Hough did his bit to mark the moment at the Royal Festival Hall on Thursday, with a characteristically thought-provoking programme that unconventionally juxtaposed Debussy with Schumann and Beethoven.

Within moments Hough had drawn us away from the hustle and bustle of Thames-side London into an alluring world, making Debussy’s famous Clair de lune very much his own without resorting to idiosyncrasy. From here we moved straight into the Second Book of Images, the Yamaha allowing Hough to shade every voice of “Cloches à travers les feuilles” with the most exquisite colourings. If Hough’s goldfish (“Poissons d’or”) were less agile than some, you could almost see the play of light on their scales.

Hough pointed up Schumann’s unlikely kinship with Debussy by following this with the C major Fantasie, whose agitated opening left-hand figuration is not a million miles away from “Poissons d’or”. The first movement had a real intimacy, reminding us that it was after all a love letter from Schumann to his beloved wife-to-be Clara Wieck. With its wide leaps, the central March is a hugely challenging movement and even Hough wasn’t immune to the odd slip. He afforded himself plenty of rhythmic freedom in the finale, imbuing the beatific melody with the most delicate colouring.

After the interval, we were transported to another moonlit scene in a faraway land, this time with Debussy’s Prélude “La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune”. The First Book of Images was no less compelling, even if “Reflets dans l’eau” perhaps lacked the darker hints that some find. But the final “Mouvement” was masterly, trembling into nothingness at the end.

The contrast between this and Beethoven’s Appassionata could not be greater and it was here that the main reservations lay. Though the technical elements were all in place, this is a work whose outer movements demand wildness, a sense of being on the edge of losing control, and that is not in the Hough armoury. In the Andante con moto, on the other hand, he brought a refulgence to the chordal opening theme and the following variations were unerringly voiced.

For the two encores we were back in the world of half-lights that Hough inhabits so naturally, with one of the posthumous variations from Schumann’s Études symphoniques and Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2.

★★★★☆

southbankcentre.co.uk