Ideal late-evening fare, this generous and magical anthology was a worthy runaway winner of the instrumental category in the prestigious 1998 Gramophone Awards. The art of Barcelona-born Frederico Mompou (1893-1987) is a fragrant, deeply poetic one, exquisitely jewelled, harmonically searching and full of improvisatory, almost childlike rapture. His is a miniature, dream-like world, for the most part sweetly innocent and disarmingly intimate, yet not without a certain playful bravado (he was by all accounts a formidable pianist himself). Suffice to say, if you have ever responded to the likes of Satie, Debussy, Ravel or (closer to home) John Ireland, then you'll go an absolute bundle on the music of this personable Catalan figure. Stephen Hough's breathtakingly poised brand of pianism has rarely been employed to more wondrously convincing effect, and the results are simply captivating from start to finish. Tony Faulkner's stunningly realistic engineering captures every subtle nuance with exceptional aplomb, and Hough's own sleeve-notes are as wonderfully persuasive as his playing. Irresistible stuff. --Andrew Achenbach