This was Angela Hewitt’s first CD in her cycle of Bach discs for Hyperion, recorded in 1994. She begins where Bach would have wanted to begin: with the Two- and Three-part Inventions–works that are approached by every piano teacher and student around the world.
‘Performances of exemplary clarity and craftsmanship’ (CDReview)
‘As close to how I would choose to hear [the music] as I have yet had the pleasure of doing’ (Gramophone)
GRAMOPHONE EDITOR’S CHOICE
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This CD, along with its companion second volume, contain all Bach’s concertos featuring a solo keyboard. The first volume includes the famous D minor Concerto, as well as the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto in D major.
‘As always, she [Hewitt] really sparkles in the allegros, infusing the music with wit as well as technical bravura’ (Sunday Times CD of the Week)
GRAMOPHONE RECORDING OF THE MONTH
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This is the second CD in a set that contains all of Bach’s extant concertos for solo keyboard. Four of the concertos are true solo concertos; the one in F major is Bach’s own arrangement of his Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 featuring two solo flutes as well as solo keyboard.
‘charismatic, effervescent, uplifting’
(Evening Standard, London)
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The Partitas show how Bach took the standard keyboard suite and made it into something uniquely his own. With the release of this CD back in 1997, Angela Hewitt’s career began to really take off.
‘Effortlessly eclipsing all competition’ (Gramophone)
‘Pouvait-on imaginer Bach aussi lumineux, brillant? … Un exercice ‘parfait’, à écouter et à réécouter pour en savourer toute la puissance, toute l’éloquence (Répertoire, France)
‘For this pair of discs only superlatives will do.’ (Soundscapes, Australia)
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“Hewitt’s playing is characteristically limpid, technically faultless, deeply intelligent and infectiously joyous. Her decades of experience playing this repertoire gives it a special patina; it glows like old gold. Give yourself an early Christmas present; you’ll want to play this again and again.”
The Guardian, December 2019
‘Brilliant, well-sounding, expressive and always new’ was the verdict of Bach’s first biographer on the six Partitas, a description which applies equally to Angela Hewitt’s wonderful new recording of what Bach designated his ‘Opus 1’. Angela describes a lifetime of living with Bach’s music as ‘a great gift and a lifelong adventure’; an adventure in which we are fortunate to have such an authoritative companion and guide.
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‘Angela Hewitt’s Bach has long been a thing of wonder’ (The Daily Telegraph)
‘Everything is right, everything is natural – this is Bach on the piano of the highest quality imaginable’ (The Guardian)
‘I know of no musician whose Bach playing on any instrument is of greater subtlety, beauty of tone, persuasiveness of judgement or instrumental command than Hewitt’s is here’ (BBC Music Magazine)
‘Hewitt remains today’s finest exponent of Bach’s keyboard music’ (Gramophone)
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These early works show how Bach must have wowed his contemporaries with his improvisations and virtuoso keyboard playing. A must for any serious piano student!
‘Her performances could hardly be more stylish or impeccable, more vital or refined; and, as a crowning touch, Hyperion’s sound is superb’ (Gramophone)
‘Like the music itself, the performances brim with that improvisatory spontaneity that is the hallmark of this player’s style’ (The Sunday Times)
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August 2007 sees the start of Angela Hewitt’s Bach World Tour in which she will bring her celebrated performances of The Well-Tempered Clavier to twenty-five countries on six continents. Concurrently, Hyperion is releasing this limited edition box set of Hewitt’s 1998-99 iconic recordings of ‘The 48’ – held by many critics to be the definitive piano version of Bach’s incomparable masterpiece.
GRAMOPHONE CRITICS’ CHOICE
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE PICK OF THE MONTH AND BEST OF THE YEAR
PENGUIN GUIDE ROSETTE
JUNO AWARD, CANADA 1999
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Ten years ago Angela Hewitt recorded a version of The Well-Tempered Clavier Book I which dazzled the critical world and record-buying public. It was followed shortly afterwards by Book II which was similarly received. Now, fresh from her Bach World Tour—in which she performed the complete Well-Tempered Clavier from August 2007 until the end of October 2008 in 58 cities in 21 countries on six continents—Angela has made an entirely new recording of this monumental work. Hear the differences for yourself!
“Playing of this ease and assurance rarely has such a profound understanding of the material. This is no mechanical journey through the cycle of keys. This is life itself.” (The Observer)
Gramophone Editor’s Choice
BBC Music Magazine Instrumental Record of the Month
Fono Forum Pick of the Month
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Angela Hewitt is joined by the outstanding German cellist, Daniel Müller-Schott, for her first chamber music CD for Hyperion. Beethoven’s Sonatas for piano and cello are works brimming with life, with the instruments engaging in colourful dialogue. This disc contains the first three sonatas, including the one in A major, Op. 69, written when Beethoven was at the peak of his powers.
DAILY TELEGRAPH CLASSICAL CD OF THE WEEK
GRAMOPHONE EDITOR’S CHOICE
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This volume commences a survey of Beethoven sonatas which will couple the well known, in this case the ‘Appassionata’, with the comparatively neglected, here the grandest of Beethoven’s early sonatas, his Op. 7. The disc is completed with a performance of Op 10/3, one of the early sonatas where Beethoven can be seen breaking the bounds of convention to create the style which would define the great works of his middle period.
“Clarity, elegance, intelligence, a belief in letting the composer speak: the winner of the Gramophone Artist of the Year award parades her qualities in the first of a new Beethoven series” (The Times, London)
GRAMOPHONE EDITOR’S CHOICE
DAILY TELEGRAPH: CD OF THE WEEK
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This is the second in a series of Beethoven CDs by Angela for Hyperion. The programme comprises three Sonatas which she has played in public for many years: the lyrical “Pastoral” Op. 28; the famous “Pathétique”; and the virtuoso C major Sonata Op. 2 No. 3–one of the highlights of early Beethoven.
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This recording, the third in the series of Beethoven piano sonatas, comprises four works from three different periods of the composer’s life. As with the two previous recordings, there was no particular plan governing their being put together, other than the inclusion of one very famous sonata (in this case the ‘Moonlight’) with others that are less often heard. The Op. 26 Sonata contains a funeral march; the Op. 10 No. 2 is a concise masterpiece of humour in music; the two movements of Op. 90 are said to be depictions of speech and song, with the second of the two sounding a lot like Schubert.
“Angela Hewitt’s Beethoven is like no one else’s.” (International Piano Magazine)
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