People Are Talking About…Angela Hewitt
Submitted by The UMS Lobby on February 5, 2010 – 3:11 pm12 Comments
Performance Date: Wed, Feb 10
Check out this great first-person blog post of how Angela Hewitt first put her name on the map.
The program for her Ann Arbor recital is the same program that won the Toronto International Bach Competition 25 years ago.
(Update) You can also read the review from AnnArbor.com by Susan Isaacs Nisbett. Nisbett writes:
So her playing had immense vitality and immediacy as well as a sense of organic growth. She played with brawn and panache where the music cried out for it, and with delicacy and tenderness when demanded.
Categories: Classical Music, Music, People Are Talking!
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I'm really hoping the snow doesn't cancel the concert or affect turnout too badly. I've been looking forward to having Miss Hewitt here for months now. She has been a HUGE inspiration to me over the years and I admire her greatly. I can't wait for tomorrow night!
No need to worry, Kenny. Ms. Hewitt arrived in Ann Arbor on Tuesday before the storm hit, so no danger of the concert being canceled.
That's great to hear. Of course, as my luck would have it, I woke up with the onset of a cold this morning, so I'm not sure I'll be able to make it after all. =(
Let us pass over the Bach and Beethoven performances in tactful silence. We don't need such experiments: How does Bach sound when he is played too fast? HE SOUNDS TOO FAST, that's how. What happens if you play the second movement of the Beethoven too slow? IT FALLS APART AND THE LISTENER LOSES THE LONG LINE.
But, hey, what about the Brahms? WONDERFUL. Loved it. Even in the other works Ms Hewitt proved herself a prodigious pianist, capable of every technical thingling a work demands, e.g., disappearing pianissimos so fleet and sleek — like someone sneaking around a corner before you can see who it is. For this sonata you need that sort of technical and expressiver range. When Brahms put down his pen, he had left out nothing. Every mood and attitude is represented here — puckishness, naivete, sentimentality, frenzy, sadness; you name it, he's got it; everything is there.
My wife and I recently watched Unquiet Traveler, a movie about Piotr Anderszewski, a pianist famous for having fled the stage of the 1990 Leeds Competition because he felt he didn't deserve to be there. At one point in the film he says, Brahms wrote distinctly masculine music. That's exactly right. But Ms. Hewitt managed not only the masculinity; she also infused a delicate — dare I say: feminine — approach to the second movement that is rarely heard. Anyway, there are folksong- like passages in this piece that always move me deeply, and I love anyone who plays it that way.
"de gustibus non est disputandum"- I found the Beethoven was completely engaging. I have heard it many times performed by many pianists, live and recorded. Angela told a wonderful story. If one expects to hear it played a particular way with a particular interpretation, just get a recording and listen to it, over and over… Like talking to ones self. I would rather hear how a variety of artists interpret the work. It is for me what makes live performances so very rich.
I agree, Music Lover.
Her performance also verged on robotic at times, especially in the Beethoven, but even occasionally in the Brahms, although I enjoyed most of it. I was disappointed by the Bach encore, as well, but I knew I wouldn't like it as soon as she announced what she was going to play.
Sara, did you hear who arranged the Sleepers Awake encore? My thought was that this arrangement was either written for an insomniac sleeper, kinda jazzy, or else, If he IS asleep, this'll wake him for sure.
I wonder how Sara knew she wouldn't like something as soon as it was announced? How sad.
Sometimes, I wonder, if others were actually at the same concert I attended. I think, all too often, we have preconceived ideas of how a work should go, and, if what we hear doesn't match our expectations, then we tend to stop listening and write it off. I think, this largely speaks to the fact, that, unfortunately, many of us don't actively listen to what we're hearing. An extreme case in point is Sara's comment about knowing she wouldn't like a work as soon as it was announced, which says, "I choose to close my ears." By the way, the encore arrangement is Wilhelm Kempff's.
Yes, Kenny, such ear-closings do happen. But preconceived ideas are inevitable in the case of listeners who are familiar with a work. That does not mean they will accept only one interpretation. But departures from a long tradition must "make sense." Even though there are perhaps several plausible interpretations, there are also many that are not. Don't you agree?
Music Lover, Of course, any interpretation must "make sense". But, who is to say, that "tradition" is necessarily "right"? There have been many musical "traditions" based on faulty scholarship (though widely accepted) throughout the years that were handed down from one generation to the next, only to be later found without foundation. As a result, "tradition", in and of itself, should not ever be, the basis for what one accepts as plausible. If a person finds an interpretation unacceptable, because it departs from "tradition", then, ones preconceived ideas reject as plausible, that which does not conform to it's standard, thus impairing ones ability to actively listen without prejudice. That said, I would, certainly, be interested to learn what you found as "departure from a long tradition" on Wednesday night.
I would be interested too. And I agree with Kenny