The new shining light on the old: Stephen Hough in recital at the Barbican

Elim Chan expertly conducts the SSO through a varied programme featuring an Australian fanfare, Russian ballet music and Brahms' First Piano Concerto with Sir Stephen Hough. 

Sir Stephen Hough continues his advocacy of Chaminade with three of her miniatures and gives passionate performances of Schumann' and Chopin. 

Mary Poppins would surely have a word for Sir Stephen Hough’s Crucible Playhouse recital... and she’d be right.

Together with soloist Sir Stephen Hough, the CBSO and Sir Mark Elder reinvent Brahms’ First Piano Concerto, present the complex non-narrative of Janáček The Fiddler's Child and suggest real happiness in Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony. 

Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé are flawless in Dvořák, Butterworth and Elgar, while Sir Stephen Hough joins the ranks of virtuoso pianists performing their own concertos.