Dear Ms. Hewitt,
Your recital at Shriver Hall, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, on May 14, 2006, was one of the most exciting classical music events I have ever experienced (and I am 68 and have attended many concerts in the US and in Europe). The Rameau was delightful (more Rameau!). Your interpretation of the Bach Partita No. 4 was masterful and breathtaking. And your Brahms Sonata No. 3 was a virtuosic powerhouse (as well as idyll). However, the most moving moment of the evening was your single encore: the Andante from Bach's Sonata in D minor, BWV 964 (transcribed from the solo violin sonata). Your beautifully slow, almost hesitant, performance of this plaintive movement, with your very effective use of rubato, reminded me of Rosalyn Tureck's equally poignant 1948 New York recital performance of this Andante: What a tribute to Bach by both of you!
Frank Westbrook
Ms. Hewitt
Thank you so much for performing in San Franciso this weekend. I attended both the Mozart and Franck performances. I've been a fan of your Bach recordings for quite a while and now I am a completely devoted fan.
I was especially happy that see you play chamber music with some of the finest musicians in our orchestra. The Franck was so fluid and the rapport among the 5 of you was so intense that it's hard to fathom that you have never played with them before. I also imagine that you had limited rehearsal time. Brava!
I'm also happy to read that you found some time to hike around our hills. If there is one thing the Bay Area has to offer, it is excellent geography.
At the CD signing you mentioned that you will be bringing the Well-Tempered Clavier on tour in a few years. I certainly hope that the Bay Area is on your itinerary. If not I guess I'll have to travel. I have to see it.
With respect and admiration,
George Wright
Will you ever get back to New York City? I'm in the mood for Le Tombeau de Couperin and anything else you would like to play.
Dearest Angela,
What a inspiring article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. It offers a delightful image of you as a child and insight into what you were like as you developed such talent.
Many of your devoted audience who wondered how you have related to Glen Gould now see that you have always been your own person. You have not personally been affected by anyones shadow, with the possible exeption of JSB.
Best Wishes for your performances in San Francisco and Eileen and I look forward to hearing you at your Trasimeno Music Festival.
Ralph
Read the WSJ article about you this evening and got curious enough to check out your site. Great stuff, especially your scrapbook section. Besides being a first class musician and performer, you find the time to enjoy the history, the entertainment and the people in the countries you tour. Pretty impressive.
Be good if you could include some audio samples of your music making on the site. Meanwhile, you've got my interest high enough that I'll search out one of your Bach albums. If you pass the test -I'm close enough to Baltimore to get a live listen(:.
Hopefully you'll be coming to Philly soon. Meanwhile, keep your joy of life.
Dear Angela
I've got the ticket for your concert in San Francisco this Sunday! How exciting!! I'll be flying in from Los Angeles. I'll bring my Passacaglia music just in case I can get your autograph on it. I'm hoping....
Love, Aki
Angela,
I work at the flower shop in downtown Ottawa and I found out one of the ladies who bought a bouquet was your mother! She was going to see her grandchild, I believe. she was so happy receiving phone call everyday from you.
Just wanted to let you know she's well.(and what a lovely lady!) Hope you have a chance to see Ottawa's tulip sometime. Take care.
Dear Angela,
What a delight to discover -- very late, obviously -- that you do now, indeed, have your own website!
I recall asking you a few years ago after one of your glorious recitals in Montreal's Pollack Hall. if you wouldn't please entertain the notion of having such a site. I admit I had purely selfish motives for asking, as I had been missing too many of your Montreal performances. I hoped that such a website would inform your public of your concert schedule and of when to expect you in town. Well, at the time you listened charmingly, as only you can do, but you confessed you were reluctant to consider such a public move. How wonderful to see you have changed your mind! And why am I not surprised that, once you have decided to do something, you have done it in spades? The site, as everyone is telling you, is first rate. (I, too, love the photo of you and your vacuum. That is much more charming than just alerting us to your next concert).
Along with all your personal contributions to the site, I have enjoyed reading the many comments of others in your guestbook. It is amusing to find, quite appropriately, so many references to your clothes, your hair, your shoes. As if your enormous musicality were not enough! But I chuckle only because it reminds me of stories a musician friend of mine told me some years ago about you, and of her own young daughter's many meetings with (against?) the youthful Angela in Ottawa piano competitions -- which you usually won, by the way. Apparently everyone would wait with bated breath to see the outfits you would appear in! You obviously had a love of fashion from a tender age.
I have fond memories of several warm conversations with your mother after your Montreal recitals here, and send the hope she still is well. I love it that you have played for her and the others in the senior's home where she now resides. I hope you will share with them again.
Continued marvellous success to you, so richly deserved. And I look forward to your next visit to Montreal. According to your website's postings, though, I will have to be patient to wait for your next offerings here.
An aside -- need I tell you how closely I identify with your playing? I admire many wonderful pianists, including the late, great Glenn Gould, whom some of your fans say would envy you -- but I suspect instead you would have baffled him as a somewhat alien spirit. But I do not so much admire your musicianship as if it were something outside myself to be admired, but rather I feel my soul inhabiting your music. You are my voice. If you have such an effect on others, you have reached the summit.
-- With gratitude,
Margaret Hofmann
Angela
Just wanted to say thanks for the link to your Concertgebouw broadcast, a lovely surprise. Can there be a better way to spend a Sunday morning ?
The concert was the usual (!) blend of warmth, intelligence, beauty and fun .. that just sounds like you. The Ravel was wonderful. The fact that all of this was predictable doesn’t diminish the result. Yet again I’m not saying enough on the one hand, and stating the obvious on the other. From the audience reaction I’ll bet that there a few hundred blissfully happy people in Amsterdam this afternoon.
Happy Easter (don’t work too hard) !
Mark
Dear Angela,
As I told you tonight: for me your concert in Utrecht today was fabulous. Thé concert of year 2006!
My wife also had an incredible evening. She was very touched by your subtle way of playing.
Unfortunately I am not able to come in Tilburg on the 29th of May. Please come back to The Netherlands and play for us.
Yours sincerely,
Roeland and Inge Vrolijk
