Stephen Hough is safe and sound
May 28 2010 By Christopher Morley
Stephen Hough recalls how he nearly lost his latest work – and his life – in a car crash. Christopher Morley reports.
Pianist Stephen Hough uses the adjective mirabilis (wonderful) in the title of the Mass, Oremus Missa Mirabilis, he has composed, which is to have its debut at Lichfield Cathedral on Sunday.
But given the extraordinary back story to its completion, it would not have been inappropriate to have dubbed it miraculous.
“Why Mirabilis? Purely personal,” he explains. “I gathered my year’s worth of sketches for this Mass together in September 2006 and wrote three of the movements in three days.
“The following day I had a serious car crash, overturning on the motorway at 80 mph. I stepped out of the one untouched door in my completely mangled car with my Mass manuscript and my body intact.
“I wrote part of the Agnus Dei in St Mary’s Hospital, waiting for four hours for a brain scan.
“I was conscious, while I was somersaulting like a screeching metallic acrobat on the M1, of feeling regret that I would never get to hear this piece.
“Someone had other ideas.”
Stephen, the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist of the Year, obviously has special affinities with the wonderful building where he will be in residence this weekend.
Last summer he gave a memorable performance with the CBSO in the cathedral, and he wrote vividly on his blog about the changing landscapes on the drive between Birmingham and Lichfield.
“I think there’s always something special about performing in a space with as much resonance (in every sense of the word) as Lichfield Cathedral,” he says.
“Every performance has to be a partnership with the building. This particular weekend is special because I’m performing and being ‘performed’ ... in the same glorious space.”
He will be giving a recital on Saturday evening, and hearing on Sunday morning the premiere in a liturgical setting of a Mass he has composed. One thinks back to Liszt, virtuoso pianist, composer, and, like Hough, a deeply religious thinker.
“Instead of setting the words simply in a descriptive way, I wanted to explore aspects of the psychology which underlies the whole nature of belief and doubt,” Stephen explains. “But I, like most Catholics, have said these words quickly, without thinking fully of the depth (or daring) of what is being expressed.
