Virtuoso Voices™ - Stephen Hough (Rachmaninoff’s Trousers) 0:32
August 2007 CD 


[Music:  
Use this clip to enhance your introduction of pianist Stephen Hough playing any Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto or the "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini".  (Hyperion 67501/2)]



SUGGESTED HOST INTRO

You don't need to be Russian to play Rachmaninoff, although some well-meaning Russians have been known to make that nationalistic claim.  Still, pianist Stephen Hough (HUFF) says it helped him to speak like Rachmaninoff when he recorded the composer's Piano Concertos.


CLIP TRANSCRIPT
"It’s a matter of learning the actual dialect in which Rachmaninoff spoke, or played his music, and then learning that and speaking your own words with the dialect. You need to get the dialect right. You need to get the costumes right.  If you put a pair of 1970's flared trousers and try and act a Noel Coward play, it's not going to look right.  We, I think, wanted to go and see what the trousers were like for Rachmaninoff as it were musically, and then do our own thing with them, and that's sort of what we tried to do in those recordings."


SUGGESTED HOST OUTRO

Pianist Stephen Hough (HUFF) listened to Rachmaninoff’s own recordings - not to copy the composer's playing, but with the goal of staying true to the composer's original intentions.  Here's an example of that authenticity in action.  Stephen Hough plays Rachmaninoff's (insert music title) with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton.



For more information, visit our website; www.virtuosovoices.org