MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
Stephen Hough: Vida Breve
Masterclass from one of Britain's finest pianists
Stephen Hough
[Hiroyuki Ito/stephenhough.com] 
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
FOLLOWING on from his recording of Beethoven piano concertos, Stephen Hough’s new work is a concept album in which themes of life and death are explored in an intellectual master class from one the Britain's finest pianists and abstract painting. As Hough is keen to point out, the image of a dead man hanging on a cross is arguably the foundational icon of Western culture.
Works for solo piano by JS Bach, Franz Liszt, Ferruccio Busoni, Frederic Chopin and Hough’s own compositions are the basis for this recital recording made at St Silas the Martyr Church in Kentish Town in London.
The album opens with JS Bach’s Chaconne from Partita No 2 in D minor, arranged by the Italian composer, editor and writer Busoni. Thickly textured, bell-like patterns give the work a monumental feel that Hough explores with a contrasting and at times delicate approach.
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