Chopin: Late Masterpieces (Incls Piano Sonata No 3 in B minor, Op 58)

"In the glut of Chopin recordings celebrating the composer's bicentennial, a few recordings are bound to stand out, and this is decidedly one of them. Not that the programming proves all that unique, but Hough's readings (rec. 4-6 May 2009), expressive, intensely concentrated, and beautifully articulated, cast a sense of poetry in every bar, and the rendition of the Polonaise-Fantasy marks Hough as a Chopin proponent of the first rank. A most satisfying paean to Chopin's mature style, elegantly rendered. Excellent piano sound courtesy of engineer Simon Eadon." (Five Stars AudAud.com)

"Hough stresses the Classical outlook of Chopin's Romanticism, even in a programme encompassing some of his most harmonically advanced music. The opening Barcarolle has rare clarity, and the Berceuse rounds things off clearly." BBC Music

"A new Hough disc is one of life's pleasures…A masterclass in pianistic command and stylistic poise with the most heartfelt playing of any of his recent recordings. There are few who can elucidate the question-and-answer phrasing of Chopin's music with Hough's transparency and unaffected simplicity." Gramophone Magazine, May 2010

The concept of 'late style' embraces more than a simple fact about creative chronology. Consider the works that Beethoven, Verdi, Rembrandt, Monet, Shakespeare, and Henry James wrote in their last years. In these various late styles, vastly different in both medium and style from one another, we nonetheless sense certain common threads: an accumulated wisdom, a mastery of craft, and a profundity of expression mixed with some elements of resignation and fulfilment. (The literary and musical critic Edward Said has also drawn attention to those aspects of late style that emphasize qualities of opposition, intransigence, and unresolved contradiction.) Often these characteristics seem to devolve naturally from the contemplation of mortality, with accompanying senses of anxiety or tranquillity as the case might be.

Frédéric Chopin composed all (or nearly all-there is some uncertainty about when he wrote the Mazurkas Op 67 No 4 and Op 68 No 4) of the music included on this recording between 1843 and 1847, or between the ages of 33 and 37.