The world premiere of Stephen Hough’s own Piano Sonata No 3, subtitled Trinitas and commissioned by The Tablet to celebrate the magazine’s 175th anniversary, was central to his recital on 27 October. It is an inspiring, tightly constructed work, based on a “tone row”, a theme using all 12 notes of the chromatic scale, and bound by the number three. The work has three interlinked movements and opens with a major third in the keyboard’s third octave. This comforting chord runs through the work, appearing sporadically, resonating like a tenor bell beneath the sparky dissonances of the allegro second movement, inspiring the new triad-based theme of the majestic finale and creating tension between the hierarchy of its own notes and the egalitarianism of the tone r