‘There are so many recordings of all three of these works that it's fair to ask: can we really be doing with any more? Yes, if they're in this kind of intriguing and appealing class … Hough's scintillating expertise is complemented by Andrew Litton and the orchestra's engaging and live-wire support … it's a credit both to them and to the music itself that it sounds so fresh here, while Hough finds new loveliness in it without ever descending into point-making. A pleasing and … thought-provoking release’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘Hamelin’s performance itself conveys a sovereign majesty while also sounding spontaneously human’ (The Arts Fuse, USA)» More

'Stephen Cleobury, Director of Music at Kings College is the organist on this disc, and he gives us a rousing and inspiring performance. His pedal mastery is excellent on the difficult Reubke sonata … highly listenable disc' (Audiophile Audition, USA)

‘To be without the Hough version of the complete opera paraphrases after Gounod would be like missing the sweet afterthought, one that only a pianist like Stephen Hough can lure us into and then indulge us’ (Pianist)

‘Always a fastidious pianist, Stephen Hough conjures subtle sonorities in these tender aquarelles … Hough's elegance minimises the music's vulgarity, while he is in his element in the dreamy fantasies on themes from Roméo et Juliette and the rare La Reine de Saba’ (The Daily Telegraph)

‘Even were Hough's technique less secure and Hyperion's engineering less realistic, this would be a major addition to the catalogue. As it stands, this recording of the first book of Années is the top choice’ (International Record Review)

‘It's clear that Stephen Hough has technically and spiritually digested the first book of Années de pèlerinage to the extent that he can risk personalising certain pieces without sounding the least bit mannered’ (Gramophone)

‘Stephen Hough has once again excelled himself … the impression conveyed throughout the main work is one of immense musicianship and subtlety, in which the pianist shapes every phrase to make its point, allowing distillations of shade and nuance, a performance in which the composer is allowed to speak on his own terms without any intervening eccentricities or rhetorical extravagances’ (International Piano)

‘Pianist Stephen Hough beautifully captures the requisite sense of Liszt's absorption in his self-created Romantic universe, as well as the heart-tugging emotions of his music … it's an exceptionally fine disc’ (The Guardian)

‘To play Liszt easily, you need at least three hands, but Hough, so brilliant in his recent Rachmaninov set, gets by magnificently with two … a valuable and highly enjoyable disc’ (The Times)

‘Stephen Hough handles this more intimate side of Liszt admirably, with playing of great expressive warmth … as a bonus, Hough throws in Liszt's three operatic paraphrases from Gounod, playing the fine reverie after Romeo and Juliet quite beautifully, and tossing off the virtuoso transcription of the waltz from Faust with appropriate panache’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘An ideal Liszt Sonata performance requires transcendental virtuosity, prodigious colouristic resources, a sense of drama and narrative flow and a gift for fusing both architecture and passion. Benjamin Grosvenor embodies these qualities and then some’ (Gramophone)