Dear Angela
I had the huge privilege and joy to hear part two of The Art of the Fugue in Harrogate on Sunday.
I had attended Part 1 last year so this recital was much anticipated.
I was truly moved - to tears - by your interpretation of the final contrapunctus followed by chorale prelude BWV668 Thankyou so much
Dear Angela
Your recital in YMCA was stunning. Comparing to Your Suites recording, I feel that Your live performance is more free and wild in positive meaning. Last time I heard so great playing was 8 years ago when You played Echo as encore. Please dont us wait next 8 years to visit our country again! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Dear Ms. Hewitt,
I just discovered you on YouTube. I thought I knew Bach but you're showing me so much more of him. Thanks!
Warren
San Carlos, CA
Hello again!
I"m sorry that this posting is a little late. I attended both of your recent concerts in Tokyo and I learned so much from your incisive playing. The architectural structure of Bach is greatly enhanced by the clarity and precision of your artistic instinct.
I was particularly enthralled by the way you let the voices move seamlessly between both hands, as required. Some of the pieces were orchestral, others were chamber-like and then there were the chorales! I cannot wait until the release of your interpretation on disc.
I feel that is great privilege to be able to hear you in such a small venue as Oji Hall, however, the audience tends to be composed exclusively of members, which limits access to younger people. I'm not sure if your Nagoya venue was larger and you had an opportunity there to enjoy sharing your music with a wider audience. I hope you did.
Regardless, I look forward to your next visit and appreciate the effort you make to come to Japan.
Brava!
J
Dear Angela,
I have been moved many times at concerts but never before have I shared such a private moment with a performer as I did when you first stood up to receive your applause. Your shared your soul through your magnificent, sensitive playing of The Art of Fugue and took us closer to Bach than I ever thought possible. You also kindly wished my young daughter well with her piano and that is more appropriate than ever as she has her final audition for a Music School this week. Thankyou and I hope you return to Glasgow soon.
Hi Miss Hewitt,
Thanks for your great music making, in concert and on records. With your busy schedule I doubt that you will have the time to answer my question, but I'll ask it anyway: based on your now vast experience of playing Bach and teaching Bach-playing, if you had to summarize, what would you say is the greatest difficulty in playing Bach? Is it choices of tempo, is it keeping a sense of dance in the dance-inspired movements, is it articulation (staccato vs legato and the many shades of staccato and legato), or has it to do with voicing and bringing out clearly the different strands of his contrapuntal writing?
I know it's a difficult one and it is probably impossible to synthesize in a few words such complex issues, but I'll be happy and honored to share your thoughts.
Best wishes
ER
Hello Ms. Hewitt,
Greetings from "the other side of the fence", a jazz piano player. Just want to tell you how much I love your recording of the WTC. I listen to it every day in my hotel room on the road, to clear my brain of musical cobwebs and reset my energy. Thank you for making such a fresh, lovely, and un-pretentious recording of Bach's music, which was such a big part of my early training. I'm revisiting those pieces again, thanks to your inspiration. Cheers, Geoffrey
Dear Angela, my wife and I thorughly enjoyed your seemingly effortless performance in Adelaide. Thank you so much for explaining The Art of Fugue, which made the concert even more special. It's wonderful that you even bring your own special markers for giving autographs. We will always cherish our 2 signed CDS. Kym & Susan
Dear Angela,
What a joy is your Faure album! I have loved the Balade since I was very young, but never had a recording of the solo version. Of course, there are many wonderful revues already pouring forth. Here's a lovely one (below) I discovered from the Buffalo News. I thought you'ld get a kick out of whom you were companioned with in the heading--and the "beef and yorkshire pudding approach" is priceless!
Thank You, Thank You...and Blessings in wrapping up production for Art of Fugue!Sincerely,
Martin Sarvis
Jerusalem
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
TheBuffaloNews.com
City & Region
Listening Post: Bob Dylan, Sly and the Family Stone, Angela Hewitt plays Faure, Jonas Kaufman and Jazz Pianist Geri Allen.
Classical
Faure, Piano Music performed by Angela Hewitt (Hyperion). There is a wonderful story at the end of Angela Hewitt’s characteristically superb notes to her magnificent recording of Gabriel Faure’s piano music. The disc closes with Faure’s “Ballade” for solo piano Op. 19, from 1879 when the long-lived composer was 34. When Faure, in the company of Saint-Saens, met Franz Liszt for the second time, he presented him with a copy of the “Ballade.” Writes Hewitt: “Liszt, then 70 years old gave up trying to play it after five or six pages, saying he didn’t have ‘enough fingers’ and asked the composer to continue.” Hewitt not only has “enough fingers” to play a terrific one-disc program of Faure, she has the ferocious intelligence and canniesss that has characterized her performances of Bach and Beethoven. But she also has something else of her own – a no-nonsense beef and Yorkshire pudding approach to music that is, by most assay, the epitome of balladic refinement. The lyricism here is exquisite, the late romantic chromaticism it flowered into is majestic. I especially liked the longer-than-usual pauses between pieces on the brilliantly recorded disc. All phases of Faure’s piano music are represented. For someone who wanted an ideal one-disc introduction to Faure’s great piano music, this will do brilliantly. (J.S.)
Dear Angela,
i second Dan's entry, and am uplifted by your playing. (I emigrated to US from UK some decades ago.) Pieces i have loved and cherished in the Fortyeight since childhood are presented not only pristinely, but with sufficient thoughtfulness and contact that they become worlds in their own right. The listener is carried to them with grace. As for Messiaen's Le Baiser, another teenage favorite, this profoundly moving for me. I was too in awe of Messiaen to approach him at an Ojai festival - where his wife performed some of the Vingt Regards.
Do please consider putting Humboldt State University on your itinerary. The University has quite a good concert series. We recently had Stephen Hough, to give a flavor. The facility bought a Hamburg D this year, but perhaps AH could use the F278 i have here.
Thank you,
Peter
