Acclaimed pianist and composer Sir Stephen Hough makes his debut with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on November 24 at David Geffen Hall. Masterworks by Chopin and Liszt anchor the program, which also features miniatures by pioneering Romantic composer Cécile Chaminade as well as a world premiere written by Hough himself and commissioned by CMS. The Viano Quartet—currently members of the Bowers Program, CMS’s residency for outstanding early-career musicians—joins Hough for this first performance of his Piano Quintet (Les Noces Rouges).

I had the pleasure of posing several questions to Sir Stephen about this unique program, composing, and music in general. Our correspondence is edited here.

The term “polymath” is often used to highlight not only your success as a pianist, but also your achievements as a composer painter, and writer. How do your various artistic pursuits influence or inform one another, if at all?

Sir Stephen Hough: I like to think of artistic energy as a kind of furnace in the basement from which a number of radiators can be heated. There’s a poetic impulse at the root of everything—poetry as in words taking us beyond words. For me, playing the piano, writing, composing—they all feel interconnected. Painting is just for fun. I throw paint around the room and some of it lands on a canvas!

You’ve composed a piano quintet for this program inspired by a short episode in Willa Cather’s novel My Ántonia. In your view, what qualities must a literary work possess to inspire music, whether in your own experience or in other musical works based on literary texts? What specifically piqued your interest in this case?
It’s the most wonderful vignette from one of my favorite novels, and I think everyone who reads it experiences a frisson as the horror scene unfolds. I usually respond to music in a completely abstract way (unless I’m setting a text, of course), even though almost all of my compositions actually have subtitles. These latter are just hooks, though: mood-windows into another world. But it did strike me that this Cather scene could be the basis for some kind of tone poem, whether for orchestra or, as it ended up, in a chamber setting.

I don’t tell the story directly but take three scenes which I loosely describe in the music—a wedding-hymn sung in church, which becomes eroticized in lush harmonies; a party where the guests get more and more drunk, ending up in a state of strange hallucinations; and then, finally, a sleigh ride across the snow when the two brothers end up throwing the bride and groom to the wolves to lighten their load and avoid their own massacre. I try to describe in music the screams of horses and wolves and human victims, and then, when the guilty brothers arrive in the village, the morning monastery bells.

Do you prefer to compose when you have concrete inspiration, as in the case of Les Noces Rouges? Does your process differ when composing programmatic music versus non-programmatic music?
I didn’t want to be restrained by this story, so it doesn’t follow the exact pattern of Willa Cather’s original. I generally get inspired more by abstract moods and half-lights than by literal descriptive music. But there was a flavor which I wanted to capture—most particularly in the third movement when complete, grotesque chaos ensues. Generally though, I want to have tears in my eyes when I compose. I want my music to touch people emotionally because virtually all the music I
like has that kind of punch to it. It’s the light, the life in the eyes.

In Enough: Scenes From Childhood, you describe signing Frédéric Chopin’s name under some of your earliest
compositions as a gesture of aspiration. On this program, you’ve paired two of his nocturnes with the B-flat minor Scherzo—rather contrasting musical characters. Can you speak to how you selected these particular works?
I adore Chopin more and more, and these are three of his most popular pieces. I often like to couple his music with Liszt’s as they are exact contemporaries but so completely different: Chopin the introvert, the classic, the fastidious jeweler; Liszt the extrovert, the romantic, a man embracing the whole messy world.

You also describe visits to the home of one of your early piano teachers, where you were introduced to the music of Cécile Chaminade. What is it about Chaminade’s music that captivated you at such a young age and continues to do so today?
Chaminade has a special place in my heart because her music was on the first album I owned as a child. She wrote many small piano pieces, all with her unique voice, combining the pianistic elegance of Saint-Saëns with the sweet melodiousness of Massenet—but without the sangfroid of the former or the sometimes cloying sentiment of the latter. I have not come across a bar of her music which lacks good taste or honest sentiment, and it’s gorgeously crafted for the piano.

You paint a lovely picture of these visits to your teacher’s home: warm and affectionate hosts, tea, cake, and beautiful music. Just as Proust famously explored how smells and tastes can invoke memories, some have drawn parallels to how music can do the same. Does this resonate with you? When you return to pieces that have been with you for decades, do you recall specific moments? Do your interpretations evolve linearly, building upon each previous encounter and carrying their network of associations, or do musical works exist outside of any context for you?
It’s a fascinating and complex question. In some ways music is all about evoking and recreating such subtle, intangible moods; our briefcases are full of madeleines. Classical music’s infinite possibilities—colors beyond any chart or palette—are one reason why I believe this art form is irreplaceable.

Jack Slavin is a pianist, music educator, and arts professional based in New York City.