Bach: Goldberg Variations – 2015 recording

2015 Recording

Sixteen years after Angela Hewitt’s first, justly celebrated, version of the ‘Goldbergs’, she here commits to record her ever-evolving response to a work which contains the ‘shadowed lesson of the whole world’, and which continues to play a central role in her life as an artist.

‘The earlier version is indeed magnificent; it is only when one encounters this most recent reading that one realises things could indeed be taken further. There is no loss of that characteristic excellence of textural clarity, but there is a deepening, evident right from the statement of the Theme, which is more inward-looking and given more space. This sense of depth maps onto a heightened sense of tranquillity’ (International Piano)

‘The pianist’s enviable polyphonic acumen and dance-orientated conception continue to operate at full capacity, albeit on a deeper and subtler level, as comparative listening reveals’ (Gramophone)

‘Sixteen year on, the fingers are as formidably on the ball as ever—capable of the most tender translucency, of staccato leaps that ‘ping’, and able to differentiate and characterise several voices simultaneously with jaw-dropping felicity’ (BBC Music Magazine)