"Two highly contrasting mini- recitals," was Stephen Hough's description of the programme he devised for this Wigmore concert. But it could just as easily have been characterised as a double portrait of the contrasting sides of Hough's pianism. The first half, made up of three works heavily dependent on variation form, emphasised the intensely thoughtful side of his artistry, while the second, a concise survey of the waltz in piano literature, showed off his effervescent bravura brilliance, which can lavish as much care on the slenderest miniature as on the most highly wrought sonata form.

Both were totally convincing. With Webern's Piano Variations Op 27 separating Mendelssohn's Variations Sérieuses and Beethoven's last piano sonata, the C minor Op 111, there was no chance to relax in the first half, but the clarity Hough brought to all three works was remarkable. The lucidity of his playing - crystalline textures, crisp articulation - finds a perfect counterpart in a musical understanding that fits every detail into the overall scheme and never even momentarily loses sight of where the music is heading. The unforced naturalness with which the second movement of Op 111 unfurled, the metrical modulations between the variations seamlessly managed, showed off that understanding to perfection.

Hough's waltz sequence began at the beginning, with Weber's Invitation to the Dance, and ended with Debussy (the languorous La Plus Que Lente) and late Liszt (the first each of the Valses Oubliées and the Mephisto Waltzes) taking in Chopin and some more French examples along the way. The playing was extrovert and ardently lyrical by turns. The steely edge that parts of the Weber showpiece demand returned for a dazzling account of the Mephisto Waltz, while the melancholy pervading Chopin Op 64 No 2 was as perfectly caught as the sentimentality of Saint-Saëns's Valse Nonchalante and Chabrier's Feuillet d'Album. Hough passed the tests he set himself consummately.