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
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