Angela Hewitt’s extensive
Bach series on Hyperion is the one by
which her playing of the composer is
best known. But she recorded Bach for
DG in Switzerland in October 1985 and
this disc restores her playing of the
Italian Concerto, The Sixth English
Suite, the Four Duets and the Toccata
in C minor in performances that are
justly weighted, technically controlled
and eloquent.
The Italian Concerto
is not especially fast. Tatiana Nikolayeva
is faster still but the differences
in weight and articulation are what
sets the two players apart – the Russian
inclining to a full, sonorous and rounded
tone, the Canadian preferring a lighter,
more precise and brighter sonority.
It enables Hewitt’s passagework to register
finely. Her slow movement is duly serious
but not overwrought and her finale is
vibrant yet clear, lightly pedalled
and crisply accomplished. The Toccata
shows her laying bare its structure
without becoming at all didactic. She
pursues things with questing intelligence,
with clarity and with imaginative resources.
Rhythmic control is strong, the contrapuntal
writing effortlessly explored.
The Four Duets are
similarly examples of Hewitt’s admirable
way. Perhaps her finest playing comes
in the A minor where she measures tonal
weight and rubati exactly. She is above
all a Bach player who at all times sounds
natural and unforced. Her tempi sound
acutely judged and she maintains lines
with tremendous concentration and sensitivity.
And so too in the D minor English Suite
where she finds buoyancy and fantasy
in alluring measure. She is not a Bach
player rooted in, say, Nikolayeva’s
cultural soil. Hewitt’s Bach is altogether
cleaner, crisper, and lighter; one cannot
for a moment imagine her, for example,
taking the Busoni Chorale Prelude arrangements
at Nikolayeva’s monumental tempos. Hewitt’s
Bach is not monumental in that sense
but its architectural monumentality
is assuredly inherent in her playing,
as anyone who has heard her Goldberg
Variations – in concert, preferably
– will attest.
If you have the Hyperion
recordings, though, do you need these?
CDA 67306 has the Italian Concerto and
the Duets BWV805-805 so that most approximates
to this disc. The English Suites are
on two discs – CDEA 67451/2. Elegantly
presented and comprehensive in the context
of an extensive series these 1990s recordings
are the finest examples of Hewitt’s
Bach playing. But there is really very
little to choose between them and this
earlier DG release on a point-by-point
basis. This DG has strong claims of
its own.
Jonathan Woolf