Guestbook

Dear Miss Hewitt, Approaching Chipping Campden on Thursday evening for Alfred Brendel's (farewell?) recital I had a pleasant reminder - when Shaun Rafferty played your recording of the Prelude and Fugue XIX -of your Goldberg recital there in May '06. Unfortunately I missed Book 1 in London in January, but am now counting the days to Book 2. John McCutchion.

JOY HAPPENSMariel Kinsey “ - - finds tongue to fling out broad its name - -” Gerard Manley Hopkins The first stanza of a poem byGerard Manley Hopkins reads: “As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;/ As tumbled over rim in roundy wells/ Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s/ Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;/Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:/ Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;/ Selves -- goes itself; myself it speaks and spells;/ Crying What I do is me: for that I came.” (You must read this several times and outloud to get the swing and gist of it.) This past week I had the great good fortune to attend two concerts of Angela Hewitt playing Bach’s The Well Tempered Clavier. Truly, she is a person living out that last phrase of Hopkins’: “What I do is me: for (this) I came!” The Well Tempered Clavier is a compilation of 48 Preludes and Fugues, progressing through all 24 major and minor keys. Every aspiring concert pianist has to deal with it as an exercise in keyboard virtuosity and interpretation. This was the first time I have listened to all of it, and my first time hearing Angela Hewitt in person, and here is some of what I can convey of this experience. Bach is inexpressibly magnificent. So is Angela Hewitt. Together they danced, twirled, chased, mourned, crooned, sighed, shouted, stomped, soared and fell, questioned, pulled, resolved. Angela’s arms floated, and her fingers flew, her eyebrows twitched, her mouth smiled and her brow frowned. She leaned forward and leaned back, she shook her head in emphasis and concluded certain pieces with grand flourishes. (We were in the second row and could see it all!) It seemed that Angela Hewitt was reaching back through the centuries to the genius of Bach himself, was drawing him into the cells of her body, through her own musical sensibilities, and was pouring him back out through her arms and fingers onto the Steinway piano, and thence into our eager and astounded ears. When she stood for our applause at intermissions, she would look slightly stunned, as though she had lost track of where she was, and who we were. It was as though she had been -- as though she IS -- a servant of this music, a servant of that “for which she came.” At the end of the second concert, after four and a half hours of immersion in Bach’s joyous complexity, a lovely thing happened, not generally noted by music critics, so I can tell it with impunity. On the third curtain call, as the standing ovation did not abate, Angela Hewitt decided to really soak it in. She stood there on the huge stage, looking around to all sides and up to the balcony, smiling and nodding, open and relaxed, absolutely in no hurry to leave. The faces she was nodding to (I turned to look) were wreathed in smiles; it seemed like we could clap forever. It was more than gratitude, ours for her and hers for us; it was JOY, in which we found ourselves immersed together, and nobody wanted to stop. And for quite a while we didn’t. Perhaps that is something about joy: when it happens, (and it’s something that can happen at any moment) joy is something that fills and engulfs and spreads. It is something that says “Yes! it is for THIS we came!”

Dear Angela, Welcome back to Japan. And congratulations on your triumph with the local audience. Your long-awaited return was worth the wait. Again you kept us at the edge of our seats showing us what is possible to hear in Bach, especially from this piano. A revelation in each single piece. Even in your usual stillness in front of the instrument, one can see how much work you put into making your live performances rich with expression and detail. Especially on today's performance of the WTC 2. I don't see Tokyo listed in your current schedule, but do look forward to your next visit. J PS. Any problems with food can be taken care of. Just ask any of your fans here, me included.

Dear Angela, Yesterday I purchased your new album. My message to anayone who might be sad or depressed in this world full of madness: listen to this. Angela, you're not playing, you're PRAYING this music. Thanks a million times thanks. Frank deSaintemarie Belgium

Thank you for your comment about the difference between the South Korea broadcasting system and the CBC. In your usual classy way you said it all. Quentin Johnson Rockwood ON