Regular readers will know that I don’t like Bach or Handel on
the piano, with very few exceptions. Glenn Gould is one and Angela
Hewitt the other main exception. She performs their music with
such lightness of touch that she might almost be playing a harpsichord
or fortepiano, yet without any suggestion that she is imitating
what might be produced by a player of either of those instruments.
I have sometimes wondered why she doesn’t play the harpsichord
but it’s really a fatuous question; these are thoroughly pianistic
performances.
In any case, those
who insist on the harpsichord in this music have an excellent
alternative, also on the Hyperion
label: on CDD22045, a well-reviewed 2-for-1 set, Paul Nicholson
performs Suites 1-8 and a number of Fugues.
Reviewing a companion 2-CD set of Handel’s Organ Concertos
(CDD22052)
Peter Lawson described Nicholson’s performances as ‘extremely
enjoyable’. Alternatively, there are the three fine volumes
of Handel’s harpsichord music recorded by Sophie Yates
on the Chandos Chaconne label (CHAN0644, 0669 and 0688).
As for Angel Hewitt’s playing here, I can’t put
it better than the Hyperion website, referring to her ‘clarity
of line, singing tone ... instinctive musicality ... [and]
urbane elegance’.
The opening Chaconne and the Suite No.2 in F which
follows have long been components of Angela Hewitt’s repertoire;
she writes of having studied (and memorised) the Suite at
the age of fifteen and the Chaconne very soon after, which
accounts for the consummate ease with which she plays both
works. There have, of course, been many changes in attitudes
to the performance of baroque keyboard music in the intervening
years and she shows full awareness of these in the notes.
The Bärenreiter score of the Chaconne is quite
different from the version which she originally learned, itself
closer to the Peters version. Without confusing the reader
with detail, she acknowledges that she has stuck to the version
which she learned, thereby allying her performance with that
of Edwin Fischer, though she admits that the other version
sounds more convincing when played on the harpsichord by Trevor
Pinnock. I don’t have that version to check what she says:
I don’t believe that it’s currently available – indeed, versions
of this Chaconne are decidedly thin on the ground.
Nor, unfortunately,
did I have a copy of Murray Perahia’s piano version of the
Chaconne on a Sony/BMG CD which also includes Suite No.2.
I can only note that Perahia takes
7:58 for the Chaconne against Hewitt’s 7:28, that he sounds
noticeably slower than her on the short extract which I
have been able
to listen to on the web and that her tempo for the work strikes
me as exactly right. Perahia’s timings for Suite No.2 are
so much shorter than Hewitt’s that I can only assume that
he omits repeats. In all fairness I should point out that
this recording (SK62785), on which Perahia plays Handel and
Scarlatti, featured as one of David Barker’s Classic Classics
here on MusicWeb International. What I can say with confidence
is that I thoroughly enjoyed Angel Hewitt’s account of both
Suite No.2 and Suite No.8.
The pairing of Handel and Haydn may seem rather
odd, apart from the fact that 2009 brings the 250th
anniversary of the death of the former and the 200th
of the death of the latter. Be that as it may, I found Hewitt’s
Haydn just as enjoyable as her Handel. The requirements of
a good Haydn performance may be different from those needed
for Handel, but those qualities which I have quoted at the
beginning of this review from the Hyperion webpage stand her
in equally good stead here. Despite the advocacy of Brendel
(Philips – several multi-CD collections: the best value is
the 4-CD Originals 478 1369), Jenö Jandó (Naxos in a 10-CD
box, 8.501042, or separately: see review
of Volume 10) and other pianists, these keyboard sonatas still
stand very much in the shadows of Mozart and, to an even greater
extent, Haydn’s rather ungrateful pupil Beethoven.
Angel Hewitt’s
account of the E-flat Sonata, Hob.XVI:52 goes a little way
toward helping to redress the balance. Perhaps
she and Hyperion would like to take the matter further. I
know that they have recently issued two well-received 2-CD
sets of Marc-André Hamelin in a number of these sonatas (CDA67554
– see review
– and CDA67710: Recording of the Month – see review)
duplicating between them both of the works on the Hewitt
CD.
Without wishing to preclude further volumes from Hamelin,
I hope that they’re willing to push the Hewitt/Haydn boat
out a little further. Healthy sales for the current CD
would
help the cause, which is where your part as the musical public
begins ...
The recording is excellent and the booklet of notes,
written by Hewitt herself, all that we have come to expect
from Hyperion.
As always, the brevity of this review reflects
my admiration for the CD.
Brian Wilson
Angela Hewitt
(piano) 
