The theme for the latest album from the prolific virtuoso pianist-composer and polymath Sir Stephen Hough is nostalgia.

This album centers the premiere recording of his first piano concerto, recorded by the composer with The Hallé under Sir Mark Elder. Its subtitle “The world of yesterday” deliberately places the work in a broader context of the pianist-virtuosi of yesteryear who composed and performed their own piano concertos as they toured the world. The short Sonatina nostalgica, utilizing a romantic musical language of yesteryear, was written for the 70th birthday celebration of a friend and fellow student of Hough’s teacher Gordon Green. Finally, the Partita was commissioned for the winner of the 2017 Naumburg Competition, Albert Cano Smit. Hough characterizes the nostalgic and celebratory five movement work as “unashamedly drawing on some early twentieth-century influences and tonal gestures.”