Review of Angela Hewitt piano recital at Perth Concert Hall

Mar 8 2011 Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

“… for music lovers, to delight their spirits” wrote Bach on his Partitas. It was also a good motto for Angela Hewitt’s evening recital in Perth Concert Hall.

J.S. Bach’s Partita No.1 BWV825 sounded from its first notes just so right. Its Praeludium convinced with style, with clarity of voicing and well sprung rhythms.

Making refined use of the piano’s more expressive possibilities, Angela’s Sarabande moved from rhetoric to majesty: in Minuet I the little flurries of notes expressed excitement and joy; Minuet II, the alternativo, had pomp; her playing of the crossed hands and separated voices in the Giga was given with puckish delight; ending with a final flourish and a beam at the audience, who equally responded with delight and at length.

Beethoven’s essential humour was present at the start of his Eroica Variations Op.35: the bang of the first chord as applicable to an ending as a start, then the cheeky presentation of the bass of the theme, perky when it arrived in full. Angela’s communication with the audience was vital and complete. Taking just two neighbouring contrasting variations: Variation 13 had high humour, the accaccciatura banged into their chords, then came the tragically funereal Variation 14. The Fugue crowned the piece, with elevated fun as the original theme floated up.

Handel’s Suite No.8 in f minor was much more baroque in the sense of outward show than the Bach. Its exploratory Prelude preceded a purposeful fugue. The Allemande almost invited trumpet and drums in its rejoicing show. The Courante was no less well sprung and the final Gigue positively fizzed along.

Brahms’ Handel Variations Op.24 have the best of both worlds: warm Romantic expression and tight compositional skill. Angela’s performance communicated all of this to the large audience. She presented the theme in a prim and proper baroque way, trills and mordents making it sit up straight. Then in Variation 2 we heard all Romantic smoothness. The virtuoso rockets rose in Variation 4. The toy soldiers were out in 7 and 8, sternly put in their place in 9. The tinkly music box was there in 22 and with magnificent sweep 23-5 built the excitement to the splendour of the final Fugue.

Such was the applause that Angela responded with two contrasted encores: the Romantic virtuoso of Liszt’s arrangement of Schumann’s song Widmung (Dedication) and the Sarabande of Bach’s fifth French Suite again with the feeling of sheer rightness, its cool beauty paradoxically personal and intimate, played as if to each member of the audience individually.

Ian Stuart-Hunter