PublishedFaber Music, April 2023 |
ISBN9780571362899 |
FormatSoftcover, 272 pages |
Dimensions21.6cm × 13.5cm × 1.9cm |
'Stephen Hough's memoir had me gripped from the beginning [ .] riveting andrevelatory. Most memoirs give me far more than I want to know - this is therare sort that left me urgently demanding a second volume, a third, a fourth. Iloved it.'-Philip Pullman
Stephen Hough is indisputably one of the world's leading pianists, winningglobal acclaim and numerous awards.This memoir recounts his unconventional coming-of-age story, from his beginningsin an unmusical home in Cheshireto the main stage of CarnegieHall in New York aged 21. We read of his early love-affair with the pianowhich curdled, after a teenage nervous breakdown, into failure at school andsix-hours a day watching television, engulfed in dreams, seesawing betweensexual and religious obsessions. We meet his supportive, if eccentric parents -his artistically frustrated father, his housework-hating mother. We read of theteachers who encouraged and inspired, and others who hit him on the headscreaming, "you'll do nothing with your life". Then finding his way back tothe piano, having abandoned plans for an alternative life as a Catholic priest,he flourished at the Royal Northern College of Music and the Juilliard School,beginning his career as an international soloist as this book ends.
