Angela Hewitt

Piano

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“I know of no musician whose Bach playing on any instrument is of greater subtlety, beauty of tone, persuasiveness of judgement or instrumental command than Hewitt’s is here”
(BBC Music Magazine)

Artistic Director: Trasimeno Music Festival

In September of 2016, Hewitt began her “Bach Odyssey”, performing the complete keyboard works of Bach in a series of 12 recitals. The whole cycle, which culminates with ‘The Art of Fugue’ in June 2020, is being presented in London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s 92^nd Street Y, and in Ottawa, Tokyo and Florence. After her performances of the complete Well-Tempered Clavier at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival, the critic of the London Times wrote, “…the freshness of Hewitt’s playing made it sound as though no one had played this music before.”

Appearances in 2019/20 include recitals in Vancouver, Amsterdam, Beverley Hills, Atlanta, Oxford, Dortmund, Leipzig and Malta. She will appear as soloist with the Montreal Symphony (also performing Schubert’s Winterreise with Ian Bostridge), Aurora (London), Toronto Symphony and Helsinki Philharmonic orchestras, and conduct Bach concertos from the piano with the Orchestre Ensemble Kanazawa in Japan. Special events include an evening with author Ian McEwan at Vienna’s Konzerthaus.

Hewitt’s award-winning recordings have garnered praise from around the world, and her ten-year project to record Bach’s major keyboard works for Hyperion has been described as “one of the record glories of our age” (The Sunday Times). Hewitt’s penultimate volume of Beethoven Sonatas (including the “Waldstein”) was released in May 2019. In December 2019 a new recording of Bach’s Six Partitas will be released.

Angela Hewitt - Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 17 K453 (excerpt) © Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Angela Hewitt - Schumann: Kinderszenen (extract) © Hyperion

Angela Hewitt - Bach: Goldberg Variations (extract) © Hyperion

“The soloist was Angela Hewitt, whose fine, supple touch gleamed ravishingly through the conversational exchanges and cadenza alike.”

(The Arts Desk, December 2019)

“The English Suites… proved an ideal vehicle for Hewitt ’s pianism, the individual lines dancing and brimming with character under her light and graceful touch…Hewitt and Bach are clearly a match made in heaven.”

(Arts Desk, October 2019)

“From the outset, Glover insisted that the orchestral lines sing forth, a seemingly endless flow of melody defining her vision of the first movement. Pianist Hewitt concurred, bringing expressive shape to even rapid-fire arpeggiated figures. Hewitt’s tone changed constantly to express the ever-shifting character of the music, the pianist sometimes moving from bright to dusky timbres at the drop of a sixteenth note. In minor-key passages, she illuminated the depth and darkness of late Mozart.”

(Chicago Tribune, January 2019)

“Angela Hewitt’s piano playing was superb; it’s a challenging part [Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony] (full of rapidly hammered fistfuls of notes), and she tackled it with the bravura and élan of a Griezmann, her right-hand-raised grandes gestes adding to the drama.”

(MusicOMH, July 2018)

“Ravel’s colors and range of expression produce a unique beauty and demand both exceptional technique and an effortless manner. Hewitt handles all this music with seeming ease and an unusual feeling of musical weight, which makes her interpretation of Gaspard de la nuit less atmospheric but ominous. She is eminently rational throughout the recording, always keeping Ravel’s clear thinking and language to the fore.”

(WQXR, June 2018)

“Grand architectural design was always in view, as things generally grew louder and slower. […] In the penultimate variation, Hewitt added octaves, apparently to achieve a richer, organ-like sonority. When the aria returned at the end, it seemed a fragile memory of better times. These were “Goldbergs” unlike any other.”

(The Washington Post, May 2018)

“The pianist had the audience on the edge of their seats in her entrancing performance of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 17 in D minor ‘The Tempest’, whipping up a highly-charged musical storm – a stunning tour de force.”

(Susan Nickalls, The Scotsman, July 2016)

“What enviable poise and expressive beauty to launch the central Andante, what muffled and sustained opening octaves, what concentrated focus. This [Liszt’s Sonata in B minor] is possibly the very finest of Angela Hewitt’s many recordings.”

(Bryce Morrison, Gramophone, March 2015)

“I won’t mince words. This Art of Fugue is marvellous. The variety and beauty of tone alone make compelling listening, bringing contrasts, clarity and warmth to Bach’s intellectual marvels.”

(Geoff Brown, The Times, October 2014)