Inspired by the spirit of the Golden Age of pianism, Hough offers us a feast of piano transcriptions, putting paid to the pernicious prejudice that these are a less worthy form of music. His own transcriptions, drawing on musicals and films, are one of this album's joys.

Musicians are big on postcards...But none are as beautifully written as those by Stephen Hough, a reliable scribe wherever he is in the world.

These aren't postcards quickly chosen from a carousel at a beachside bazaar, but rather thoughtfully chosen notes from a wide-eyed traveller, even revisiting familiar scenes with wonder such as in MacDowell's To a Wild Rose or Schumann's Vogel als Prophet, where Hough's playing is finely nuanced and controlled yet ineffably right and natural at the same time.