Hough Plays Rachmaninoff

Stephen Hough has been one of my favorite pianists in recent years. His recordings have been consistently of high quality and variety - from Liszt, to own his transcriptions, to Mompou, to Saint-Saens, and more recently the Rachmaninoff concerti. Hough's sound is also quite unique. Rather than a singing bel canto, his sound is clean, clear, bell-like and refined. There is this sec, glassy attack to it, and this incredible sensitivity to the sonorities and the decay of the sound which really works well for certain works, especially tonight's Paganini Variations. Lovely articulated runs, finely nuanced lyricism and a real sense of drama (Is there anything quite as exciting as the huge adrenaline rush right till the very end from right after the famous 18th variation?) - I'm glad I was there, especially since I only went because a friend sold his ticket to me as couldn't make it for the concert.

After the interval was Elgar's Enigma Variations which was really quite engaging. It's a really well-constructed work with such amazingly heartfelt moments - felt tears welling up right at the end. Lan Shui concluded the concert with an encore of the Pomp and Circumstance, which was definitely feeding off the emotional high of the conclusion of the Enigma - extroverted and high-energy.

A couple of issues also sprang to mind:
1) Someone should tell the orchestra members to smile when acknowledging the applause. As of now, only the principals and the conductor seem to be happy that the concert's finally over. The other players have either this dour or impatient expression plastered on their faces.

2) Someone should investigate the phenomenon of spontaneous coughing at the end of every movement. Why half the hall has a tickle in the throat that they must restrain till the end of a movement to relieve I'll never understand. I've been for so many concerts and have never felt such an urge.

Heard from a friend that an old friend is back in Singapore, after leaving to study music when she was 12, to relief-teach at her school. We shared the same piano teacher back then and I haven't seen or heard from her for more than a decade. I guess these are the people you'd really like to meet but when you do meet, it'd be really awkward.