The Canadian way with Bach is
evidently not to be sniffed at. Angela Hewitt shares with her distinguished
predecessor who specialised in Bach on the piano, Glenn Gould, a complete
dedication to her cause. She differs in her absence of irritating mannerisms,
though.
Miss Hewitt’s Radio 3 Lunchtime
Concert was packed: there was even a healthy number of people prepared
to stand at the back of the hall. The concert began with an announcement
that in the rescheduling of BBC broadcasts, there is no space for a
regular spot for regular rebroadcasts of these much-loved concerts,
so they will be repeated as and when. A severe disappointment for followers
of these wonderful events, then: especially when the playing is as inspired
as here.
Angela Hewitt is as convincing
in Bach as she is in Messiaen. Although her most recent recording is
of the six English Suites (to be released later this month), we the
audience were treated to the Sixth and Fifth French Suites (to give
them in order of performance). Her playing was little short of remarkable.
Hewitt has a rock-solid rhythmic sense that gives the music an unshakeable
integrity. Above and beyond this, the moods were many. In the sixth
French Suite alone, she moved from the civility of the Allemande, through
the fluent Courante (it did, indeed, appear to be ‘running’) to the
stately Sarabande, the eloquently simple Menuet and a final Gigue which
was clarity in sound. Furthermore, Hewitt has evidently studied the
acoustics of the Wigmore intently, for even from the very back of the
hall there was not the slightest hint of a smudge.
The marvellously whimsical mind
of François Couperin made an ideal contrast. Interesting how
the first piece of the 27th Ordre, entitled, ‘L’exquise’,
began in a remarkably robust fashion. The quirky, highly ornate ‘Les
payots’ followed (depicting, according to Lindsay Kemp’s programme note,
‘the sleep-inducing properties of poppy juice’!). The quirkiness was
continued in ‘Les chinois’, a remarkable window into a clearly unique
mind, before the final ‘Saillie’ (a ‘leap’) rounded the whole off with
oodles of fun.
Domenico Scarlatti can hardly
be accused of being a predictable composer, either. If the hyper-delicate
B minor Sonata, Kk87 spoke of the deepest sadness in Hewitt’s hands,
the G major Kk13 stood in joyous contrast. Hands crossed each other,
vying with expert repeated notes for the cheers of the rightly appreciative
audience.
To come back to Bach was to return
to a more ordered world, but a world of undisputed genius nonetheless.
If Hewitt confirmed she was, after all, human by the smallest of losses
of clarity in the Allemande, this movement nevertheless held remarkable
inevitability and calm. The fragile beauty of the Sarabande made it
the Suite’s still centre of peaceful gravity; it was the ‘Laure,’ however,
that emerged as the emotive heart of this account. True, the Gavotte
(which surely everyone knows) was highly attentive to style, ornaments
always stylish and tasteful, but of all the movements it was the life-affirming
energy of the final Gigue that will remain with this listener. One could
see how much Hewitt was enjoying playing this. And the applause said
how much the audience revelled in it.
The new season of Monday Lunchtime
concerts could hardly have got off to a better start.
Colin Clarke
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