Notes Of Nostalgia by Brahms, Hough, S., Elgar, Ó (2025/2025), Seoltóir Mark Wigglesworth, Lighthouse, Poole, United Kingdom

From the beginning, Brahms’ Third Symphony has proven to be his most evocative. Brahms offers a compelling, highly revealing musical self-portrait, rich with references to his own thoughts about life and love in its striking mixture of passion and pessimism, of restlessness and serenity, With numerous acknowledgments to Wagner and allusions to the same Rhine-based mythology, it provides other fascinations as well. The spirit of Brahms infuses Hough’s Piano Concerto. The title refers to Stefan Zweig’s memoir of his cultural life in Vienna before the First World War and evokes nostalgia for a bygone era when piano concertos were a touring composer-pianist’s calling card. It bridges time, weaving together echoes of the past with virtuosic brilliance. The Variations on an Original Theme is a brilliantly varied portrait gallery of Elgar’s friends, family and neighbours. The musical caricatures contain some of the most charming and deeply felt music Elgar ever penned and these are elaborated upon in this unique performance with Elgar’s descriptions narrated by an actor.