One of the world's leading pianists, Angela Hewitt appears in recitals and with major orchestras throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia. She is especially renowned for her recordings of all the major keyboard works of Bach, described as "one of the record glories of our age." In 2020, she was presented with the City of Leipzig Bach Medal, a huge honor that for the first time in it's seventeen-year history was awarded to a woman. Angela was awarded an OBE in the 2006 Queen's Birthday Honors and was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 2015. In 2018, Canada further honored her with the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement. From 2016 until 2020, Angela Hewitt presented the 'Bach Odyssey,' an ambitious and exciting overview of the complete keyboard works of J.S. Bach in twelve recitals over four years, in venues worldwide including London's Wigmore Hall, Tokyo's Kioi Hall and New York's 92nd Street Y. Pressed on 180g vinyl.
The viola works on this recording fuse lyricism with virtuosity, and sometimes invoke folkloric moments as well as more rhapsodic flights. Martinu' 1955 Sonata plays on elements of folk music and rhapsody, as well as a toccata-like intensity.
This latest instalment of Angela Hewitt's Beethoven is bookended by the great 'Tempest' and Op 109 sonatas. The performances-incentive enough to acquire this release-are as usual complemented by Angela's own booklet notes which provide real insight into how she approaches these masterworks
The great "Eroica" variations are the centerpiece of this program, which ends with two amusingly anglophile tributes, and contains some surprisingly under-appreciated Beethoven. This is an indispensable pendant to Angela Hewitt's ongoing survey of his piano sonatas.
Angela Hewitt has chosen this album from her glorious Bach discography as the first to be available on vinyl. Recorded in 2015, this is a Goldberg to savour and here as a bonus side 4 includes a magnificent suite of dances by Rameau. This LP is part of Hyperion's 2024 Vinyl Edition.
