‘Ainsley—urbane, sexy and witty throughout—is at his absolute best’ (The Guardian)

‘Graham Johnson is quite literally changing the way we hear French mélodie. What a voyage to be invited to join!’ (International Record Review)

‘Performances which ideally blend poetry and virtuosity … the Bergen Philharmonic, a fast-rising orchestra under their music director Andrew Litton, are excellent partners. This is a self-recommending issue’ (The Mail on Sunday)

‘Hough dispels the clouds of unknowing with inventive power and technical brilliance, eloquently supported by the Bergen Philharmonic and Andrew Litton. His reading, while dramatic and unconstrained, remains essentially poetic … Litton's warm-toned orchestra deploys its most important instruments, the ears of its players, to engage with Hough's music making, magnifying the impassioned fire and lyrical intensity of the Grieg’ (International Piano)

‘One of the Liszt bicentenary's prime releases, from Britain's greatest living magician of the keyboard’ (The Sunday Times)

‘Time and again, Hough's traversals of familiar works are played with such insight, probity and sage musical understanding that we feel almost as if we are hearing them for the first time … each phrase is shaped with the utmost refinement within an exquisitely fluid tempo that is perfectly matched by Litton and his musicians … this full-blown, go-for-broke, unapologetically Romantic approach yields one of the most intensely dynamic, emotionally authentic readings of this score we are likely to hear for some time … Stephen Hough's steady ascent to the summit of his profession exhibits equally supreme mastery of his instrument and the deep humanity from which it has flowered’ (International Record Review)

‘Does the world really need another recording of the Grieg Piano Concerto? The answer has to be an emphatic yes when the soloist is the barnstorming Stephen Hough, a pianist with the fascinating ability to take a venerable work, strip it of its patina and present it as though for the very first time … highly recommended’ (The Observer)

‘Stephen Hough continues to bemuse as a pianist so free from difficulty that he can soar, inflect and alter the course of a musical argument at the drop of a hat … he expresses a personality all his own, brilliantly alert to mercurial changes of mood and clearly riding on the crest of a wave of success. With technique honed to a state of diamond-like brilliance, he gives us rapier-like cadenzas and glissandos that flash like summer lightning’ (Gramophone)

‘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)