Angela Hewitt : Bach Performance on the Piano, Excerpt 1

From Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt's 2008 DVD released on the British Hyperion label, 'Bach Performance on the Piano'.

I hope to periodically post excerpts from this instructive and enlightening 2-disc DVD set, in which Ms Hewitt (my favourite Bach interpreter today) ...

'... shares the inspiration and experience behind her award-winning playing in an illustrated lecture that explores the technical and practical steps essential for performing Bach on the piano. '

This first extracted bit is from the Introduction, beginning with a complete performance of the Two-Part Invention No. 1, then skips to Chapter 1.3, which details Ms Hewitt's views about playing Bach on the modern piano, with musical illustrations from the Goldberg Variations. Her opinions and tips are at the master class level, and are insightful and interesting, and can be inspiring and helpful to all lovers, listeners and players of Bach on the keyboard.

NOTE: I do not intend to post the entire DVD contents here; only excerpts to show viewers what invaluable tips and advice Ms Hewitt offers in this DVD set to all lovers of Bach's exquisite keyboard music.

To learn more, and to purchase a copy, visit:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012Y1HJQ/ref=cm_rdp_product


From Angela Hewitt's own official website/blog:

http://www.angelahewitt.com/record.php?record_id=34

(The poster is in no way connected to Ms Hewitt or Hyperion, but is just a huge fan of the performer and the composer, and wishes to promote her DVD for interested players, teachers and listeners.

The poster is also quite mediocre in her pianistic skills, but finds enlightening and inspiring all that Ms Hewitt has to share here, and furthers her enjoyment of Bach on the keyboard !)

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• Two-Part
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• Inventionen
• Hyperion

[version191]

shes pretty opinionated about what the "right" way to play bach is. I think she makes the music dull and meandering. IMO bach sounds best rhythmically straight. Any amount of rubato or whimsy and I want to fall asleep. I like the way she plays 20thc music, though

[mariandelochs]

@version191

As are you in your opinions. Like so many others. No wishy-washiness here, which I like.

[OldRabit]

Thank you for this very instructive video! VERY proud of our Canadian pianist!!!

[mariandelochs]

Yes, I love Angela Hewitt's very lucid teaching videos - besides her exquisite Bach recordings!

[soami2u]

Angela Hewitt is a genius...her Bach has colour, personality and a most appealing stylishness, never weighted down by scholarship or erudition, though there is enough scholarship for the most fanatical of musicologists. To me her Bach playing has what her fellow Canadian Glenn Gould's lacked, and I put her with Edwin Fischer and Rosalyn Tureck as one of the alltime great Bach pianists.

[ezybella]

She explains it so well, and it really makes you want to play it more... She makes the music sound rich and expressive...

[clau2138]

Wow!

[pinkdiamond82]

that's one of the worst interpretations of the Bach i ever heard. the thing that keep me pressing the Unlike button is our common love for Bach. regarding her criticism of harpsichord i only know that i have listened some of Landowska interpretations are so emotionally that made me cried ... so something must be wrong with her theory.

[NimbleTurtle13]

@version191 I agree with in some ways but there is a good reason why many people love Hewitt's playing. It is not necessarily the best by any means but she portrays a side of Bach that makes her interpretation appealing in some manner.

[Udders666]

That harpsichord sounds like a typewriter.

[naugiedoggie]

@HerlockSholmes123 Is this like a "massive bullshite" comment? Gould's interpretation of Bach is appealing if you like your Bach played like a high-speed train on its last run of the day. Sometimes, I like it that way, too. Other times, I like it a bit more ... refined and thoughtful. Gould's idiosyncratic style and interpretations are not the be-all and end-all of Bach.

[naugiedoggie]

Maybe, she's "opinionated" because she has spent decades studying and playing Bach and his contemporaries. I dunno ... does a world expert and world-class pianist with that kind of commitment have a right to be "opinionated"? Hmm, tough one. Well, not really.

[twooffour]

Forget about the manuals... on the harpsichord, the string is plucked a second time when you take the note off, which gives a whole new dimension to articulation. This is one of the reasons why applying harpsichord articulation to the piano mostly doesn't work out so well... then, the piano can't make such "crisp" arpeggios as the harpsichord, it doesn't "rawk" so hard in up-tempo pieces, etc. - so you lose a lot by playing Baroque on the piano, but, of course, you gain a lot, as well ;)

[twooffour]

@version191

I share this view on some pieces, like the 1st movement of the 6th Brandenburg concerto (everyone aside from Goebel makes me wanna "sleep"), but I don't mind with this invention ;)

[arioso7]

@fingaz000

Agree with this reply completely.

[arioso7]

nice playing, well shaped, but why try to juxtapose piano against harpsichord when it's a case of apples and oranges. If Bach wrote for the harpsichord that's what he knew. How do we know what he would have felt about the modern day piano and if he would have been happy with today's Fazioli, Yamaha, Steinway, etc. Let's let the great harpsichords keep playing Bach, and the pianists do the same without value judgments.