Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 [89:43]
Angela Hewitt (piano)
rec. 2013, Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin
HYPERION RECORDS CDA67980 [42:11 + 47:32]
Angela Hewitt’s extensive booklet notes for this release open with her
prevarication with regard to learning and performing Bach’s The Art of
Fugue. “What I had heard of it never seemed to excite me very much.
Neither could I believe that Bach in his final years had at last managed to
write something boring.” This is somewhat like my experience with recordings
of this work in the past. I knew there was something really special in
Bach’s BWV 1080, but none of the performances I acquired were
particularly inspiring, especially some of those venerable organ recordings.
Of those played on the piano, Joanna McGregor’s (review) became my first choice after ultimately being
left cold by Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s Deutsche Grammophon recording, which
had in turn taken over from Vladimir Feltsman on Nimbus (review). Cédric Pescia’s Æon set remains fascinating for its mixture
of period tuning and romantic touch. All of these recordings have fine
qualities and there are of course many more versions to explore, but Angela
Hewitt’s now very much represents the top of the evolutionary tree. When it
comes to Beethoven’s late piano sonatas I had the feeling that Igor Levit was giving us the ultimate ‘Software
Update’ in opening the window on these works in terms of interpretative
clarity. The Art of Fugue reaches comparable heights with Angela
Hewitt, rendering Bach’s late enigma into something richly satisfying,
deeply enjoyable, and movingly poetic.
Hewitt’s preparations included taking C.P.E. Bach’s 1751 publication blurb
seriously when it says, “all the parts involved are singable throughout”.
Hewitt’s learning process “involved singing each voice in turn and marking
in the breathing points – which come at different times in different voices.
There is no escaping that if you want it to make musical sense.” This vocal
connection is an aspect which adds a core of naturalness and human
expression to each piece, and goes a long way towards removing that veil of
abstraction which sees so many performances beached and gasping for the
juicy goodness at the heart of the music.
I’m not about to examine the whole thing in microscopic detail, but
starting with Contrapunctus I you know you are onto a good thing
from the outset. Hewitt’s tempo is unhurried, but her playing has a deep
‘swing’ which turns you on from the start. Just try clicking your fingers on
the offbeat and you’ll soon feel the groove I’m on about. As with her
Well-Tempered Clavier, Hewitt gives the music some rubato to go
along with the rise and fall of the harmonic tensions, digging into the
dynamics to create contrast without theatricality, delivering satisfying
drama which is held elegantly in proportion. Vocal lines imply lyricism, but
well-articulated rhythms are a feature of, for instance, Contrapunctus
II, so we’re by no means wallowing in thick textures or suffering lack
of contrast.
Finding oneself amidst such a wealth of superb ‘new’ Bach it becomes quite
tricky to pick out highlights. Hewitt finds her inner Couperin in
Contrapunctus 6 ‘in stylo Francese’, turning up the ornamentation
and slowing the pace to add room for extra filigrees. The layering in
Contrapunctus 7 per augmentationem et diminutionem is done with
marvellous subtlety of touch, creating a complex and labyrinthine world
through which you can allow your brain to wander while the banal outer
concerns of clock time melt away. Complexity is sometimes engaged with
brighter colours, the contrast of Contrapunctus 8 presenting a
superficially more conversational touch, but once again generating a musical
edifice which grabs your intellect, and which you let go only reluctantly.
None of these pieces is given real tempo indications by Bach, but the sense
of an interlinked structure and narrative pacing is omnipresent. Hewitt ups
the pace in Contrapunctus 9 as the notation seems to demand,
delivering entertaining virtuosity to go along with all the contrapuntal
brain-food but by no means over-cooking the speed. This peak means that
Contrapunctus 10 is something of a cooling-down for the end of CD
1, but the entrancement remains undiminished.
CD 2 begins with “one of Bach’s most terrifying pieces”, Contrapunctus
11, though you wouldn’t really realise this from the equanimity in
Angela Hewitt’s performance. Bach’s remarkable chromatic solution to the
musical thicket he had invented for himself seems to unfold with the
naturalness of breathing – admittedly in long, spiral breaths which never
seem to end, but still in arcs which can be followed to their logical
culmination. We can sit in awe at Bach’s audacious reversals, inversions and
general throwing around of his themes and subjects in Contrapunctus
13, but the dancing nature of the music is highly entertaining at the
same time.
Making some comparison with Pierre-Laurent Aimard in, for instance, the
Canon alla duodecima in contrapunto alla quinta and you hear the
distinct difference in Aimard’s sterner, instrumental/pianistic approach in
comparison with Hewitt’s vocal lines. I am in awe of Aimard’s technique and
he can do wonders in terms of voice leading, but in the end the pieces
become rather flattened out and less involving. Hewitt makes sense of that
finely honed opening theme by giving it an inner ‘question and answer’
dialogue which echoes through the entire piece, with “beauty to be found in
severity” in the mere two parts from which Bach engineers his invention.
Going back to Cédric Pescia, and while he remains fascinating his playing
isn’t beautiful in the way which makes Angela Hewitt’s so captivating.
Pescia introduces some tricks, such as holding down the pedal to generate
some unusual atmospheres at the start of some of the slow pieces, but these
ideas don’t really hold much water as they have to be abandoned as soon as
the other voices enter.
The final unfinished Contrapunctus 14 (Fuga a 3 soggetti) is the
“great enigma”, but contains “some of the most beautiful and perfect
part-writing in all the keyboard works of Bach.” Hewitt is sustained rather
than really slow, the pace of the music keeping up an even, naturally
breathing flow as the elaborate counterpoint unfolds. The music is left
incomplete here as it should be: one of all music’s most poignant moments,
with those final notes launched into the irrevocable infinity of silence.
C.P.E. Bach’s solution for closing The Art of Fugue was to include
the chorale prelude Wenn wie in höchsten Nöten sein, and this is
what we are given here. As Angela Hewitt sums it up in her booklet notes,
“there could be no ending more fitting than this.”
Do I have criticisms? It is a shame that this recording is spread over two
discs, though at nearly 90 minutes this would appear to have been
unavoidable. There are quite substantial silences between each piece, and
while I appreciate being given the time to digest each one and prepare for
the next, this does create an added aura of reverence and the feeling that
this is being presented as a Precious Relic. You can perceive this as truth
or feel it’s all a bit excessive, but again these respectful spaces are
preferable to being hustled overly hastily from one piece to the next. I
suppose you can’t have the one without the other.
Basically, what we have here is a reboot of Bach’s BWV 1080 which
relegates pretty much every other recording on piano to ‘also-ran’ status.
There are few enough ‘classic’ recordings which can justifiably be defended,
and off the top of my head I can only really think of Charles Rosen (Sony
Classical) in this regard. There are as many pianists which massacre the
work than enhance it. You may for instance come across a 2014 recording by
Antonio Palareti from the onClassical label which I have to say is a
shocking travesty.
Pretty much worth the asking price for the booklet notes alone, owners of
Angela Hewitt’s big Bach box set will doubtless see this as a compulsory
purchase and will need no converting – something which you’ll find works
both ways if you are only discovering Angela Hewitt’s Bach for the first
time through this BWV 1080 as it will almost certainly leave you
wanting more. This very special recording keeps the work’s enigmatic aura
while lifting away its sense of desparate technicality and its feel of
remoteness and academic dessication. The Art of Fugue emerges to
become a thing of genuinely compelling beauty: something to inhabit and
enjoy for a lifetime, rather than music to be heard with reluctant patience
or dutiful awe.
Dominy Clements
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