The antidote to election rage: Stephen Hough's gravity-defying new Tchaikovsky concertos

Actually, on second thoughts, Stephen Hough’s two-CD album of Tchaikovsky’s complete works for piano and orchestra could actually increase your agitation or excitement. Because Hough – who is of course a brilliant Telegraph blogger as well as Britain’s leading pianist – takes sections of the First and Second Piano Concertos at a speed that leaves your jaw on the carpet. And the critics are loving it.

Buy this album! And buy it by clicking here! I make no apology for the commercial break, because the Telegraph and Hyperion are offering signed copies of the CDs at a special price. And it’s the first reader offer generated by Telegraph Blogs, whose editor took time off from raging against the Tabletistas to help fix it up.

As I say, Stephen’s daredevil technique has to be heard to be believed – but its impact is even greater because Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra have collaborated in a rethinking of these works that lends (for example) a new foreboding to the warhorse First Concerto. Also, in the last movement of the First, soloist and orchestra throw themselves into the final stretch at such a pace that, after hearing it, I had to suppress the impulse to invade a small country. But that’s just me. Like I said, click here.