THE JOYS OF ANGELA HEWITT’S ‘BACH ODYSSEY’ AT UBC
Angela Hewitt (piano): Works of J. S. Bach, Roy Barnett Recital Hall, UBC, February 26, 2020.
In many respects, Angela Hewitt has been on a Bach Odyssey her entire lifetime. She played, danced and sung Bach throughout her childhood, and has carried her inspiration forward unremittingly from her victory in the Toronto International Bach Competition in 1985 (interview). In 1994, she began her massive project to record all Bach’s keyboard works for Hyperion, finishing up with Art of the Fugue in 2014. For all the pianist has found time to make distinguished excursions into the French repertoire, as well as Mozart and Beethoven, her current Bach Odyssey began promptly in 2016, when she started the entire traversal again, planning 12 concerts of the complete keyboard compositions in five cities: London, New York, Tokyo, Florence and her home town, Ottawa. The target endpoint is June 2020, where she returns to the Art of the Fugue, at which time she will receive both the Wigmore Hall Medal and City of Leipzig Bach Medal.
Vancouver has already seen two installments of her current project: the Goldberg Variations (review) and Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier (review). This concert formed part of the pianist’s visit to the University of British Columbia – to give the Dal Grauer Memorial Lectures and masterclasses. The programme placed together some of the remaining odds-and-ends (as she put it) in Bach’s vast keyboard output. For those who like nostalgia, it actually contained two pieces (the Four Duets and the Italian Concerto) that figured in her first recording for Deutsche Grammophon, one of the prizes of her triumph in the Toronto competition. That the pianist was enjoying ‘old friends’ was very evident throughout the evening and, for all the widely-publicized misfortunes of Hewitt’s beloved Fazioli at the hands of negligent movers, she seemed (perhaps surprisingly) full of joy and radiance throughout the concert. She did get a brand new Fazioli to play here.
Hewitt has often remarked that the reason she wishes to return to all the pieces again is the new range of colour she finds in them, doubtlessly connected with resources offered by the Fazioli (as compared with a Steinway). But this only part of the story. A clear element of her development has been a more sophisticated structural awareness and shaping, allowing the composer’s counterpoint to be motivated more naturally in longer paragraphs, and permitting a richer (yet still finally-gradated) narrative line to emerge. It is also a stronger Bach now, occasionally dramatic and imperious, with greater extremes in sentiment, but also more deliberative and decisive. As always, there is the immense care in building the counterpoint through varied textures and shading, identifying a natural building and release, with acute attention to dynamics.In terms of technical virtuosity and agility, the pianist may be as strong now as she ever was.
This concert was rewarding in its diversity. The opening Four Duets, while slight, offered a fine set of contrasting virtues: structural clarity in the first, beguiling animation in the second, a subtle sense of the galant in the third, while the strength of the fugal line impressed in the last. The A minor Fantasy and Fugue was noteworthy in how the rounded shaping of lines played off against its architecture and structural discipline. Perhaps the real treat was the Eighteen Little Preludes, which were characterized so completely (and individually) that each seemed an absolute jewel unto itself. This was a feast of variety, full of the pianist’s spirit, and displaying many of the ingredients that one can identify in the greater works: the sense of the whimsical, the contemplative shadings of an inner world, the nobility and grandness, the effervescent buoyancy of expression and the wonderful joys of the composer’s cantabile line. Above all, there was freedom in this playing.
Hewitt’s enthusiasm was infectious, even if the opening to the Overture in French Style might have seemed a little overeager, for all its superb double dotting. However, things soon settled. The dances were strongly characterized, pointed and alive, with a fine layering of texture and plenty of artful shading. Her ability to always find some structural device to ensure the continuity of the counterpoint was both subtle and impressive. Tonal articulation ranged widely – from the angular and clipped to a rich burnished sonority. There can be little doubt that the eleven pieces added up well: the concentration and power at the close were quite formidable.
If there was one work which suggested some qualifications, it was the ever-popular Italian Concerto. Hewitt seemed to forego her characteristic commitment to the suspension of a ‘pianistic’ line, instead emphasizing more linear and virtuosic dimensions (as on a harpsichord). This was an interesting switch but, right from the opening, the lines seemed more compressed, with the phrases and counterpoint less clean and finished. The famous Andante also seemed slightly too slow and dispersed. Nonetheless, the zippy finale made amends, bringing the work home with its characteristic joy and delight.
Angela Hewitt’s visit to UBC was an absolute pleasure. Even leaving aside the experience afforded the general public, it was so good for the music students to witness pianism of this quality, and for them to be with the artist in the final stages of her memorable project.
© Geoffrey Newman 2020
Photo Credits: Jan Gates, Ole Christiansen, Maria Teresa De Luca