BBC Radio: Angela Hewitt Interview

Award-winning pianist Angela Hewitt has been described as The Queen of Bach. She was in the middle of a Bach world tour at the time of this interview, performing The Well-Tempered Clavier in twenty-five countries on six continents. She discusses the appeal of the Bach with BBC's Jane Garvey.

Listen to her play Bach's Prelude and Fugue in D major live in BBC radio's studios here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v38ceXvfQpM

Category:

Music

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• Angela Hewitt
• Well-Tempered Clavier
• piano
• harpsichord
• keyboard
• music
• Baroque
• live
• Prelude and Fugue
• Johann Sebastian Bach
• Jane Garvey
• BBC
• radio
• interview

[micheldvorsky]

"Bach requires great economy of movement". Lol, and Liszt / Chopin etc don't? Moiseiwitsch used to just flail around when he played all that virtuoso repertoire.

[SsteinwayS]

You're definitely right. Perhaps one needs more "economy" in the Romantic repertoire because it is so much more difficult (octaves, double trills, arpeggios, etc.), so to be effective one must be in complete control of every movement and efficient when playing. She probably means that Bach is more condensed in terms of the the keyboard range and technically demanding, but I think that was perhaps poor word choice on her part.

[Barbapippo]

@micheldvorsky Any kind of music should be played without useless movements, or ridiculous facial expressions etc. ; in fact, most of the great pianists (with some notable exceptions) tend to limit pseudo-tehatrical manners and gestures as much as they can

[SsteinwayS]

@Barbapippo I depends from person to person and their own preference for movement, but I think one really must just let the music "speak for itself", as they say.

[SsteinwayS]

By posting this video, I did not say that I support her. She is "great" (i.e. perhaps a little more than passable), and as I said, her Bach isn't aways to my taste. I would prefer Gould over her a THOUSAND times for his musical sensitivity and technical perfection...in the clip after this, for instance, when she plays the D major prelude and fugue, it's slow and there are even note mistakes! It's often hard to enjoy her playing when she's not even technically competent at times.

[hattrickster33]

@SsteinwayS I prefer Gould over her as far as Bach is concerned.

[SsteinwayS]

No problem! She's a great pianist, even if her Bach isn't always quite to my taste.

[iedsri]

Thank you for posting these radio clips!