“Playing of this ease and assurance rarely has such a profound understanding of the material. This is no mechanical journey through the cycle of keys. This is life itself.” The Observer
Angela Hewitt has established herself at the highest level not least through her superb, award-winning recordings for Hyperion. Her ten year project to record all the major keyboard works of Bach has been described as “one of the record glories of our age” and has won her a huge following. She has been hailed as “the pre-eminent Bach pianist of our time” (The Guardian) and “the pianist who will define Bach performance on the piano for years to come” (Stereophile). Her discography includes CDs of Beethoven, Schumann, Messiaen, Ravel, Chopin, Couperin, Rameau and Chabrier.
Angela Hewitt appears as recitalist and soloist at the major concert halls around the world including the Lucerne Piano Festival, as well as major festivals such as Edinburgh, Prague, Osaka, Hong Kong, Schleswig-Holstein and Oslo. She regularly gives recitals in London’s Royal Festival Hall where in April 2009 she performed the complete Goldberg Variations, and is also a regular guest at the Wigmore Hall. Recital highlights of recent seasons for Angela Hewitt include debuts in Carnegie Hall and the Concertgebouw while orchestral engagements have included performances with the Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Toronto Symphony, London Philharmonic, Hallé Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra and a debut at the Verbier Festival playing and directing Bach.
Angela Hewitt’s 2007/8 season was dedicated to a world tour performing Bach’s complete Well-Tempered Clavier across two recitals. As part of this tour, Angela Hewitt gave around 110 recitals in more than 30 countries across 6 continents including performances in venues such as the Royal Festival Hall, Zurich Tonhalle, Cologne Philharmonie, Venice La Fenice, Carnegie Hall New York and in many other major cities worldwide. Forthcoming engagements will include the Oslo Philharmonic, RAI Torino, BBC Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Basel Chamber, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Orpheus Chamber, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras.
Born into a musical family, Angela Hewitt began her piano studies aged three, performing in public at four and a year later winning her first scholarship. At nine she gave her first recital at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music where she later studied. She then went on to learn with French pianist Jean-Paul Sévilla. She won First Prize in Italy’s Viotti Competition (1978) and was a top prizewinner in the International Bach competitions of Leipzig and Washington D.C. as well as the Dino Ciani Competition at La Scala, Milan. In 1985 she won the Toronto International Bach Piano Competition.
Angela Hewitt was named ‘Artist of the Year’ in the 2006 Gramophone Awards. She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2000, and was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2006. She has homes in London, Canada and Umbria, Italy, where she invites international musicians each summer to take part in her own Trasimeno Music Festival. Further information on this festival and Hewitt’s performances can be found at www.angelahewitt.com
Angela Hewitt is represented by Intermusica.
September 2009 / 479 words. Not to be altered without permission. Please destroy all previous biographical material.
Beethoven Sonatas, Op.10, no.2; Op.26; Op.27, No.2, ‘Moonlight’; Op.90 (Hyperion)
"…the spotlight is on the Moonlight, and Hewitt’s performance is totally riveting. Adopting a flowing yet sustained tempo for the opening movement, she creates a beautifully veiled and hypnotic sound despite consciously overriding Beethoven’s specific direction to hold down the pedal throughout. The ensuing Allegretto is no less persuasive especially in the strongly rustic quality she brings to the middle section, whilst the Presto agitato balances tremendous finger dexterity with passion and urgency. …"
BBC Music Magazine, August 2010
Basel Chamber Orchestra / Wigmore Hall, London
Bach Keyboard Concerti (playing and directing)
“Listening to Angela Hewitt play Bach is like stepping back into a more elegant age. … the manner of her playing takes us back to a time when instrumentalists felt that every phrase should be given its own shape, colour and distinct place in the world. There are no stray details, awkward corners or unwise tempos in a Hewitt concert. Everything has been pondered and perfectly placed. And the execution is as pristine as the conception. …
No wonder she now packs the Wigmore with ecstatic admirers.
The Times, May 2010
“The very first bar of the D major concerto was one of those moments which seem to pack an evening’s worth of experience into about three seconds. First there was the shock of the beefy, piano-plus-strings sound. Decades ago this was how Bach’s concertos always sounded, but these days we’re used to the more wiry, transparent sound of the harpsichord. This surprise was immediately pushed aside by another – the electric tension in that simple, three-note opening phrase, which grew from small beginnings as if it were leaping towards us.
This promised something full of thrilling dancing energy, which is exactly what we got. Hewitt’s great gleaming Fazioli piano looked as if it would dominate the proceedings, but she kept her left hand light as a feather, and when she did let rip (which she had to at times, to avoid an enervating sense of “holding back”) it was to decorate ends of phrases with grand harpsichord-like flourishes. It was the gesture that was big, rather than the sound itself.
What these players proved is that in Baroque music you really can have your cake and eat it. You can use the greater power and expressivity of modern instruments to make the “period” style of the music more vivid. In the G minor concerto Hewitt made a tiny hesitation in a phrase each time it came round – a nice balletic touch, but would it have worked so well without the piano’s sensitivity?
Another keen pleasure of this concert was the way Hewitt softened Bach’s sometimes severe outlines with playful and very French-sounding ornaments. Everything she played had an air of joyous spontaneity, even the chastely beautiful Largo from the F minor Concerto, which she played as an encore.”
The Telegraph, May 2010
Recital: Schumann, Brahms / Wigmore Hall, London
“After a flinty, fiery performance of the 18-year-old Brahms’s Scherzo in E flat minor, Hewitt turned to the great F minor Sonata: five movements of a prodigious 20-year-old’s response to all that his ears had heard and his heart had known. Hewitt, keeping a formidable intellectual and physical grip on the sonata’s form and direction, set up a thrilling ebb and flow of expressive power. She seemed to take exuberant pleasure in a youthful energy that at any time could draw back into itself, and which was stilled into two disarmingly nonchalant yet ambivalent and shadowy slow movements.”
The Times, April 2010
“Angela Hewitt's Schumann and Brahms recital felt like a very definite artistic statement. Don't pigeonhole me as a woman who plays Bach, it seemed to say. …
In the Schumann pieces, Hewitt and her preferred Fazioli piano took time to find their voice. But as the music grew darker, she asserted firm control. There was none of the winsomeness that some players look for in these pieces. The sombre shifts of the E flat minor Albumblatt were especially impressive.
Hewitt never allows her Brahms to linger – always a good rule. The variations, written in the turbulent aftermath of Schumann's attempted suicide and Brahms's growing feeling for Clara, were tender but severe.
Hewitt then launched both the Scherzo and sonata with the terrific attack these pieces demand. But it was in the lyrical ardour of some of Brahms's second subjects, and the andante second movement of the sonata, that she reached real heights. The beautifully sustained andante, which seems to slip in and out of the harmonic world of Beethoven's Pathétique sonata, was the highlight of the evening. Truly a woman who can play Brahms, too.”
The Guardian, April 2010
Recital: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann / Bamberg Musikverein
“Hewitt played the chromatic fantasy and fugue in D minor BWV 903 with a clarity of structure which she maintained through the ever-increasing density of the polyphonic lines. It was a treat to hear how Hewitt allowed the fugue to grow from the fantasy, and how wonderfully she coaxed the dynamics back down for the reprise. These weren’t the only treats on offer on this spring evening. …
Her interpretation of Beethoven was marked by a keen sense of tone, eloquent creative power, cantabile, clarity and lively accentuation. During the melancholy largo, the audience seemed to stop breathing to listen the more acutely. … Brahms’ Variations on a theme of Robert Schumann were full of the spirit of the composer born two hundred years ago. Both Hewitt’s leggiero playing and her song-like melodic lines were gripping. As the final variation faded away from a triple piano, the audience held their breath collectively, then applauded enthusiastically.
Hewitt was not only in control of her instrument, but also of her audience. Her refined musicality was in evidence in Schumann’s sonata in G minor, especially in the andantino in 6/8. Hewitt’s performance of the simple, one-line melody of the legato with the right hand over portato triplets in the left was breath-taking. This piano recital was simply sensational.”
Fränkischer Tag, March 2010
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (play/direct) / Bach / Carnegie Hall, New York
“Angela Hewitt was making her debut with the orchestra, performing Bach's Keyboard Concerto in D minor. It was probably programmed to underscore the Bach affinities of the new Maxwell Davies piece on the second half, but her radiant performance made a bid for stealing the show. Purists from the historical-performance camp might have quibbled with some of Hewitt’s dynamic swells in the first movement, but for those willing to imagine what Bach might have done had a concert grand been available to him, her brilliantly executed cadenzas and abundant and fleet florid passage work were breathtaking. Elsewhere, she crafted pellucid cantabile lines in the Adagio and darted about playfully with the orchestra in the final movement.”
Musical America, February 2010
Chamber Concert with Isabelle Faust & Stephen Stirling: Schumann, Brahms
Wigmore Hall, London
“[Brahms Horn Trio] received a magnificent ¬outing, wonderful partnerships emerging between the ¬players as Brahms's lilting melodies wafted in and out of Hewitt's gleaming Fazioli.”
The Guardian, January 2010
Handel and Haydn (Hyperion)
“Angela Hewitt’s notes reveal some secrets of her interpretation, a mixture of heartfelt response to the music and rigorous scholarship. What she does not discuss is her ability to transfer the quality of harpsichord (for Handel) and fortepiano (for Haydn) to her beloved Fazioli piano. It’s neither mimicry nor trickery. Rather, she distils the essence of the original instruments without compromising her out-and-out commitment to the modern keyboard.
The large-scale Haydn E flat Sonata is superb, above all the middle movement in an astonishing and other-worldly E major. Hewitt’s dynamic range is bold – she refers to Haydn’s felling for the richness of English Broadwood pianos – and the glittering facility of the final Presto is thrilling.
Altogether a splendid contribution to these composers’ anniversary year.”
Instrumental Choice, BBC Music Magazine, October 2009
Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra / Roberto Minczuk
Mozart Piano Concerto no. 21, K467
“Hewitt coaxed from the instrument the most delicious of sounds, the runs a shower of pearls and the melodies fragrant as a rose. This was Mozart playing of the highest distinction, with Hewitt's musical concentration evident at every turn.”
Calgary Herald, September 2009
Recital: Bach, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Beethoven / Fairmount Auditorium, Cleveland
“The world has a fair share of gifted pianists who make spectacles of themselves … and others who care about nothing but the music. Angela Hewitt is an artist who draws attention only to the ideas at her fingertips.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 2009
Recital: Bach Goldberg Variations / Royal Festival Hall, London
“No pianist today is more closely associated with playing Bach than Angela Hewitt, and throughout her career the Goldberg Variations has been her signature work. It's 10 years since Hewitt's much-admired recording of the Goldberg first appeared, and in that time, Hewitt's approach to Bach has become more relaxed and naturally expressive.
That was obvious in this performance, whether in the way she unfolded the opening aria of the Goldberg, introducing tiny hesitations and emphases to define its contours more sharply, or the unbuttoned, almost rhapsodic sweep with which she shaped some of the later variations such as the chromatic 25th, with its final clashing dissonance given a stabbing fierceness. By dutifully observing every one of Bach's repeats, Hewitt created the chance to conjure up yet more contrasts within a single variation using different colouring and accentuation, or occasionally by turning its dynamic scheme upside down.
Yet the clarity and formal coherence were still immaculate. Hewitt never treated this technically demanding work as a showpiece, but it's a huge technical feat in itself to make every contrapuntal line so independent and distinctive.”
The Guardian, May 2009
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier Books I & II; (Hyperion)
“Angela Hewitt made her first recording of the 48 Preludes and Fugues in the late 1990s, as part of her Hyperion cycle of Bach's keyboard works. Her return to them seems to have been prompted by a sense of greater familiarity with the music itself, matured over 10 years of playing the pieces in recital. In fact, not a great deal about her performances has changed […] What shines through her playing most of all is a sovereign control of touch, texture and dynamic, so that every line is perfectly characterised and distinct. This is by no means the only approach to playing Bach's masterpiece on a piano, as the historic, equally valid recordings by artists as contrasting as Edwin Fischer, Glenn Gould and Sviatoslav Richter demonstrate, but it's a measure of Hewitt's achievement that she invites comparison with pianists as great as those.”
The Guardian, 5 stars, April 2009
“Angela Hewitt's Bach has long been a thing of wonder […] and this four-CD set of both books of Das Wohltemperierte Klavier again illustrates how she can deploy the timbres and technical attributes of the piano to animate the music in the most sensitive way.
Her palette of colours is judiciously chosen, her variety of touch and dynamics gauged so that each prelude and fugue has a character of its own and contributes something special to Bach's iridescent kaleidoscope of musical invention.”
The Telegraph, 5 stars, April 2009
“A decade after her dazzling recording of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Angela Hewitt has done it again. Literally. Fresh from her Bach World Tour - in which she performed the work in 58 cities in 21 countries on six continents - she has […] made a new recording of this landmark work for keyboard. Why? Because, she says, while living and growing with the music during the year-long world tour, her interpretations changed. Internalising the material, she uncovered a new-found freedom within it; opportunities to throw fresh colour into the mix, to loosen up, to be more expressive, echoing Bach's compulsion to revise and refine the work over the years. […]
The result is a precious document, which draws upon her development as a person and a performer over the past 10 years. Playing of this ease and assurance rarely has such a profound understanding of the material. This is no mechanical journey through the cycle of keys. This is life itself.”
The Observer, March 2009
“I can’t think of another player who has immersed herself in this repertoire more deeply or more comprehensively. The Well-tempered Clavier is inexhaustibly fascinating and Hewitt’s new live recording reveals so much that is usually hidden.”
Classical Music Magazine, August 2009
“In her new recording, she seems less concerned than before to emulate the crisp, slightly clipped quality of Bach’s keyboard instruments with plucking mechanism, and conceives the marvellous works more pianistically, with greater expressive freedom, but never romanticises or sentimentalises the music […]. As ever with Hewitt, the joie de vivre she finds in this music remains exhilarating. Even if you own her old set, this new one cries out to be heard.”
Sunday Times, May 2009
"Listening to Angela Hewitt's latest thoughts on Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier alongside her late-1990s Hyperion cycle... it appears that her interpretations haven't changed so much as evolved, intensified and, most important, internalised. This perception is enhanced by a closed sonic image, plus the leaner, more timbrally diverse qualities of Hewitt's Fazioli concert grand that contrast with her earlier recording's mellower, more uniform Steinway. Yet I readily credit Hewitt's pianistic prowess for more acutely differentiated legato and detached articulation this time around, together with a wider range of melodic inflection.
While both versions hold equal validity and stature, Hewitt's remake ultimately digs deeper, with more personalised poetry."
Gramophone, Editor's Choice, June 2009
"This is Hewitt's second recording of the '48' in a decade. Fifty-eight live performances over 15 months gave her generous opportunity to mull over her approach. […]
Hewitt is no harpsichordist manqué. She takes full advantage of the piano's potential […] Her quiet sustained tone is as silky and restrained as a clavichord; the opening of the first Prelude is breathtaking, creating a sense of embarking on a sustained pilgrimage throughout the whole set."
BBC Music Magazine, 5 stars, April 2009
“One would need half-a-page here to do full critical justice to Angela Hewitt's second recording of the "48" in a decade. Sublime in its simplest subtleties, hundreds of tiny gems of rhythmic and expressive elasticity bring characteristic layer upon layer to what is still essentially a most reverent and uncontrived reading. The Fazioli piano, her instrument of choice in her recent Couperin and Rameau recordings, is tonally perfect for Hewitt's controlled, light-fingered approach, each fugal voice speaking with perfect clarity and sustain, allowing the pianist to embrace an astonishingly vast range of dynamic narrative. If you buy just one recording this year, let it be this.”
Sunday Tribune (Ireland), 5 stars, March 2009
Recital: Bach, Beethoven, Fauré, Ravel / Konzerthaus, Berlin
“At a time when every musician has to find his own idiosyncrasy to distinguish himself from all the others on the market, performances like that of Angela Hewitt have become rare. … Hewitt simply makes music in a fantastically rich way, be it virtuoso, structural, sonata, Bach or Beethoven. And to all this abundance, she adds her distinctive pianistic personality.”
Berliner Zeitung, December 2008
Beethoven Sonatas for Cello and Piano Disc / Daniel Müller-Schott (Hyperion)
“The success of this duo partnership is very evident in this first volume of Daniel Müller-Schott and Angela Hewitt’s Beethoven cycle. They respond with imagination and flexibility to Beethoven’s mercurial changes of mood, one moment tender and reflective, then bold and dynamic, and are particularly good at pinpointing some of the more daring and musically prophetic elements in the Op. 5 Sonatas; I’m thinking of the marvellous way in which they introduce unexpected change of key in the middle of the first Allegro in the F major, and the tremendous release of tension in the Allegro molto that follows the protracted silences in the dramatic introduction to the G minor.”
BBC Music Magazine, December 2008
“Angela Hewitt and Daniel Müller-Schott are forming quite a chamber-music partnership, following their Bach Gamba Sonatas album of 2007. This follow-up is similarly delightful, the pair of a mind – and a nimble, elegant one at that. They find the colour and fantasy in these Beethoven sonatas that, as with that Bach disc, give unalloyed pleasure.”
Gramophone, December 2008
“These are the performances of great finesse and musical insight, whether in No 2’s hushed, brooding slow introduction, or the excursion to mysterious remote keys in the first-movement coda of No 1.”
The Telegraph, November 2008
50th Birthday concerts at Wigmore Hall
“Joy is the paramount quality that Angela Hewitt’s piano playing radiates, as was evident in a group of 50th birthday recitals she gave last week. It might manifest itself in the smiling exuberance of a Bach gigue or, at the opposite extreme, in the way she can so fully enter into the intense, introspective world of a solemn slow movement by Beethoven, but ever-present is a sense that she is deriving pleasure from what she does and in communicating it to others.”
The Telegraph, September 2008