it's a superlative performance [of Alborada del gracioso] by any standards, including repeated notes that turn me green with envy.

a substantial feast of of masterly pianism...Hough can be too coolly objective at times but in this repertoire, perhaps paradoxically, the expressive simplicity of his playing can make your eyes burn. In Clair de lune and Chaminade's once ubiquitous Automne, now rarely heard, Hough conjures up a heart-catching melancholy that put me in mind of Cherkassy. I can't offer higher praise.

what struck me on first hearing was the consistent clarity of his approach. In lesser hands a programme like this could so easily dissipate into a series of soft-focus washes of sound, but even in the most familiar pieces I found myself becoming aware of countermelodies and overarching phrases which had never before caught my attention.

personal touches make Hough the artist he is, but I can imagine some musical Francophiles balking at his free interpretation of Fauré’s D flat Nocturne, and more so at his eccentric Debussy (Clair de lune). Yet there are compensations aplenty: Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso and Fauré’s F sharp minor Impromptu are glitteringly played.

His latest album recital is among the most enjoyable. “A sort of musical dessert trolley,” he calls it — a trolley where you want to eat everything in sight...The Fauré selections best display Hough’s connoisseur’s touch...The lighter French spirit surfaces in Hough’s own arrangements of Délibes and Massenet, delivered with delicious wit and grace.

[Hough’s] one of those keyboard polymaths who’s at home in whatever music he chooses to play, invariably casting new light on the familiar in the process. And the better-known items here do delight...But you’ll want this for the rarities...playing and recording are beyond reproach.