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
Dear Angela
A little more than a decade ago i rented an F278 in London from J Samuels - and it felt like a great privilege to play what they told me was A H's favorite. About a yr ago i purchased one for myself, and it is indeed as you have said in interviews - the piano is so responsive i have had to improve my playing. After a year, i feel i am just beginning to open to some of the expressive posiibilities.
I have just purchased several of yr cds at Hyperion, as well as the Bach DVD.
May your life and career continue to flourish.
Peter
Those of us who reside in the hinterlands of North America would indeed be poorer of spirit, had your musical passion and your technical mastery not been digitally recorded and made easily available to us. Thank you M'Lady for a rare view of Perfection.
Dear Angela,
thank you so much for your concert during the Bach-Festival in Ansbach last week. Never before I was so deeply touched by listening to Bach piano concerts BVW 1055 and 1058! It was really great!
All the best to you!
Gerlinde Dürr
Dear Ms. Hewitt,
What an immense pleasure to hear and see you at your June NAC Ottawa concert - just simply suberb on all levels.
The Mozart recording I purchased that evening (and which you very kindly signed) is wonderful and I play it often.
I was looking forward to your Ottawa August concert for the Art of Fugue but will be unable to attend. I truly hope that another Ottawa visit to play this great work will be forthcoming in the very near future.
Wishing you always the very best from Ottawa.
Luc
Angela Hewitt, you are without doubt one of the most amazing talented people I have ever come across, you played Liszt when it almost seemed the piano itself was moving with an emotional response that the whole audience was feeling. thank you so much for just being and for giving us all such an unforgettable experience.
As we had hoped to do for so long, Angela, we heard you play magnificently the second set from The Art of Fugue at the RFH last night. It was indeed the climax of a superb programme, and we were among the many who stood to applaud your performance.
Thank you for deciding to follow the set with the chorale. It was like a prayer of thanksgiving and benediction.
Thank you so much too for your informal introduction to that set. You cast new light on it for us.
We have several recordings and now we wait impatiently for yours to be released. Your interpretation of the many voices was a triumph.
Cordial greetings from us both, and best wishes as you play throughout your heavy schedule in 2013 and beyond.
May the world rejoice!
David & Druuske Hawkridge
Dear Angela Hewitt.
Your concert in Copenhagen on the 30th of April is unforgettable. I never felt so close to Bach - as if three centuries were just a breath away.
Thank You from my heart for all of your efforts and for sharing it with us...
Michael Hasselgaard
Dear Angela,
I remember like yesterday I bought your Bach recording that was published by DGG.
Afterwards there was the Welltempered Klavier from Hyperion and then I felt blessed with each new installment that appeared in the Bach series.
That you made a new recording of the Welltempered Klavier made me a little bit suspicious at first but after hearing it I was overwhelmed.
I loved the subtle new freedom in tempo and those almost unnoticeable changes of "tempo within the tempo" without disrupting or distorting the always present flow in Bach. For me it greatly enhances the feeling for structure and has a very strong emotional impact.
To have the potential to play the way you do is a gift.
But I am filled with awe and feel an enormous respect when I consider the discipline and hard work this must take as well.
I just bought the CD with the flute sonatas with Mr. Andrea Oliva and now I can't wait to hear you playing the violin sonatas (BWV 1014-1019) as soon as you can find a violinist to your liking.
Thank you very much for making the lives of so many people so much richer.
Kind regards,
Inigo van Beurden
(please delete the previous one, I copy/pasted and forgot to sign 🙂
Angela, after telling my Facebook friends about the time I saw Van Cliburn perform, I posted the following about you:
Recently I watched a documentary on the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who loved Bach (as I have since childhood). The soundtrack stole my attention away from the images. Never before had a performer evoked so strongly the feelings I associate with Bach. [I had no idea when I wrote the preceding that I'd stumble on this in the NYT:]
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THE pianist Angela Hewitt, a wonderful Bach interpreter, once said that the greatest compliment about her playing had come from her father, who said: “I didn’t hear you. I only heard Bach.”