"Writing one's own cadenza for a Classical concerto was common until the mid-20th century, but that was like hanging a picture on a wall. This was more like building a whole new wall."

Stephen Hough shares the process of re-composing the second movement of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto. He describes the importance of maintaining the balance of the work and portrays the difficult decisions he faced when considering compositional style:

"I decided to keep the exact instrumentation of the Beethoven original, but should I write something in his style? This is a question which comes up in reference to cadenzas: do we try to keep them in the same musical language as the composer or use our own voice."

He explains that he chose to write within his own style, but used elements of the original material as a starting point, resulting in a delightful blend of the two composers' voices.

Hear Hough's re-imagination played live at Symphony Hall by the composer himself in this performance.