Home  Entertainment Reviews Angela Hewitt Makes Each Piece Her Own
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Angela Hewitt Makes Each Piece Her Own |
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Written by D.S. Crafts
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Friday, 30 September 2005 |
"The Year of the Pianist" was how Managing Director William Mullen introduced the new season of the Santa Fe Concert Association. Surely there could be no better way of commencing the series than with Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt who took the stage of the Lensic Theater for the Performing Arts Thursday night. Hewitt, who first became known for her sparkling recordings of J.S. Bach, chose a program spanning nearly the length of her prodigious talent, including Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Ravel.
Like all great interpreters, she can make each piece her own while never violating the essential spirit of the music. Take, for example, her first offering, No. 5 of Bach’s so-called “French” Suites. Each dance was imbued with a distinctly different musical personality—-a spritely Courante, a bouncing Bouree, and a Gigue with unbounded energy and pianistic color. If anyone had any doubts that the Sarabande movements of this set of works are among Bach’s most elevated music, Hewitt quickly informed them of that fact with a profoundly graceful rendition with near-mystical qualities.
The Beethoven Sonata in D, Op. 10 No. 3 caused her to switch gears, fully reflecting the mad passions of the youthful composer in one of his most accomplished early works. The Largo e mesto (Slow and sad), the heart of the work, rose from the keyboard like an enveloping dark mist, transporting us to another place, another time.
Hewitt impresses not with electrifying virtuosity (though she has resources to spare), but rather from sheer musical presence and an understanding of the music communicated with crystal clarity. Here is a pianist with something to say.
Following the break Hewitt announced from the stage two Preludes and Fugues from Mendelssohn’s Op. 35, namely the first in e minor and the fifth in f minor. Mendelssohn did more than anyone to rescue J. S. Bach from the obscurity he suffered his entire life, and it hardly surprising that he should pay homage to the master in this set of works. The music however, is far more Liszt than Bach, the e minor Prelude coming as a whirlwind of beautiful sound, capped off with a Fugue which in the end integrates a reference to “Ein’ feste Berg” (A mighty fortress), Bach’s most famous chorale.
For the final work Hewitt ended where she began, with a French suite. But this time a genuinely French suite, though seen through the eyes of the 20th century. Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin came like a sugar rush with its lusciously rich harmonies and, in fact, elicited some of Hewitt’s most sonorous playing of the evening. She performed, of course, the original 6-movement suite, as opposed to the abbreviated orchestral version.
A standing crowd cajoled her into returning to the stage to play Chopin, namely the Prelude Op. 28 in D-flat, nicknamed the “Raindrop” Prelude. The work proved as musically satisfying a conclusion to this marvelous concert as it was meteorologically topical.
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About Reviewers D.S. Crafts (Website) Composer Daniel Steven Crafts came to New Mexico from San Francisco where he had hosted a classical music radio program on KPFA. His first commission from opera star Jerry Hadley, "The Song & the Slogan" based on texts by Carl Sandburg, was made into a TV program for the PBS network and aired nationally in 2004 and won an Emmy for Best Music. His latest opera La Llorona is a collaboration with novelist Rudolfo Anaya based on his play "The Season of La Llorona." Mr. Crafts is currently working on another commission from Jerry Hadley for a piece about the American Southwest which includes texts by Rudolfo Anaya and V.B. Price. Two CDs of his music, Contemporaries (short, satirical keyboard works) and ARIAS (excerpts from his various operas) have been released on the BACAT label in San Francisco.
David Steinberg David Steinberg has covered state government, the courts, city and county government in Santa Fe for the Albuquerque Journal. He's been an arts writer for the past 20 years, and serves as the book editor, for the Journal. Over the years, he's also acted in plays, sung in choruses and played trumpet.
Jennifer Noyer Jennifer Noyer has been writing dance reviews for the Albuquerque Journal for 17 years, as well as contributing articles for Dance Magazine and other art journals. She trained in dance with Hanya Holm in New York City and Colorado Springs, and studied several dance techniques at the graduate level at the University of Michigan. After teaching dance at Wayne State University she entered and completed a Masters Degree in Humanities there. In New Mexico Ms. Noyer has taught, directed, and choreographed contemporary dance for several years. Her writing on dance includes a monograph accompanying the video of choreographer Bill Evens’ ballet “The Legacy.” An overview of Evans’s world wide career, it was written and published during his tenure at the University of New Mexico. Ms. Noyer’s studies in the humanities, and her studio dance work influence her approach to dance as an integrative art form in the United States.
Barry Gaines Barry Gaines has taught Shakespeare in the University of New Mexico English Department for over twenty-five years and has received two outstanding teaching awards. He has written theater reviews for the Journal since 2000. He has attended theater all over the world including Shakespeare productions in Russia, South Africa, Denmark, and Poland. He has also served as literary advisor for two professional theater companies and written performance reviews for Shakespeare Quarterly. Gaines has taken two years of acting with Paul Ford and appeared in small parts in three plays at the Albuquerque Little Theater. He believes that he is probably a better reviewer than actor.
Joanne Sheehy Hoover Joanne Sheehy Hoover, music critic emeritus of the Albuquerque Journal, has written for NPR, PBS, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Symphony, among others. She has also been a music lecturer for the Smithsonian Associates and a music critic and arts writer for The Washington Post. She was director of the Levine School of Music, one of the country’s largest community music schools, in Washington, D. C. 1980-1993. She and her husband moved to Corrales, New Mexico in July 1993. Also a poet, her fifth collection, “Einstein in New Mexico,” was published in 2002.
Marissa Greenberg Marissa Greenberg is a member of the faculty of the University of New Mexico English Department, where she teaches Shakespeare and early English literature. A prior guest reviewer for the Albuquerque Journal, Greenberg will be reviewing theater while Barry Gaines is out of town. She also composed and edited the program notes for last year’s Albuquerque Shakespeare Festival and has written performance reviews for Shakespeare Bulletin. A graduate of Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, Greenberg has been performing and studying drama for most of her life. She is thrilled to have this opportunity to review for the Journal.
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