What does she command? Your attention. From the very first notes, there’s such authority, such security to Angela Hewitt’s playing that immediately you are riveted to what she is doing. When it’s Bach, as it was Tuesday at Meany Theater in the English Suite No. 6, it’s also straightway imbued with a sense of rightness. Bach was a master of structure and organization, and this Hewitt brings to the fore at the same time as she is illuminating the richness of Bach’s ideas. She’s a thinker. The pauses in her playing, the phrasing, the dynamics are all a coherent part of a persuasive musical interpretation of Bach’s intention, her playing profound, somber, exciting, at times fiery.
At the same time, there’s an irresistible forward motion to everything she plays. It was there in each work on the program, sometimes dancing, sometimes sedate, sometimes headlong, but always moving.
The first half of the concert was German: Bach, then Beethoven. The second half was French: Faure and Ravel.
Hewitt appropriately brought an early classical approach to Beethoven’s Sonata in F Major, Op. 10, No. 2, written at the end of the 18th century when the piano was still in its infancy. At the same time, her view demonstrated how far ahead of his time Beethoven was, and it’s amazing to wonder how on earth he could even imagine, let alone get the kinds of effects he did from that instrument at that date. Hewitt is not a showy fireworks player herself, but the Beethoven under her fingers reveals the drama, the contrasts, the thrilling results in his music when it’s played as she does. There were a few wrong notes here, but none detracted from the overall absorbing performance.
The Faure works she chose are not often heard, the first two of his Valse-Caprices, Op. 30 and Op. 38. Here again, ebb and flow in the music abounded, parts airy and dreamlike, then suddenly with more energy, always alluring, pulling the listener onward.
She finished with Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin” in a fine performance, as in everything she played illuminating many of its passages.
Her encore was Ravel’s “Pavane pour une infante defunte.”
Philippa Kiraly
