USUO: On Demand presents Stephen Hough plays Bach, Schumann & Liszt (Streaming 10/22-11/21/20)
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British piano sensation and MacArthur Fellow Stephen Hough embarks upon a 75-minute solo program of Bach, Robert Schumann and two works by Liszt that would challenge the stamina and technique of any pianist. Hough, a frequent soloist with Utah Symphony, was originally scheduled to perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor” followed by Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 on the orchestra’s first two consecutive Masterworks concerts of the 2020-21 season.

Felix Mendelssohn once wrote of the Bach Chaconne: “On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.”

Schumann’s “Fantasie” stands as a landmark of Romantic piano literature. Not really a sonata, but cleverly masquerading as one, it follows its own blueprint. Dedicated to Franz Liszt, one of the few performers of the day who could have even performed the piece, the Fantasie was not an immediate success. Even Clara Schumann refrained from playing the work until well after Robert’s death.

Liszt’s Funérailles comes from a cycle of 10 pieces called Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (Poetic and Religious Harmonies). Funérailles is without a doubt the most well-known of the set, and one of his most famous, if not hair-raising pieces.

The Mephisto Waltz No. 1 is Liszt’s incredibly virtuosic setting of a portion of the Faust legend. The devilish Mephistopheles takes Faust to a dance at a small-town inn. When Mephisto begins to play his fiddle the villagers are whipped into a frenzy. At the climax of the revelry a nightingale is heard, and as the dancers disperse, Faust and the innkeeper’s daughter vanish into the forest.

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