Rough Ideas
By Stephen Hough
Faber, 464pp, £18.99/$21.46
Stephen Hough is famous for a lot of things, mostly to do with playing the piano. He ranks high among the leading keyboard geniuses of our time – and genius is not an idle word here: it’s a status formally acknowledged in the US with what’s known as a MacArthur “Genius” Award. But he is also a composer, poet, painter, one of Britain’s best-known Catholics and, at the same time, one of its more prominent, reflective and articulate gay men. And for some years he’s written about all these things – in articles and blogs compiled during the lonely hours that travelling pianists spend in airports and hotels, with this book as a result.
