Bach: Goldberg Variations / 2015 Recording – Angela Hewitt

   in Piano International (Jan, 2017)
Hewitt’s decision to re-record the Goldberg Variations, given the hugh success of her 1999 recording, is both brave and remarkable. Yet it offers listeners an opportunity to trace the deepening of Hewitt’s Bach playing: in May 2015, Hewitt gave a performance of Die Kunst der Fuge at London’s Wigmore Hall that revelled in that piece’s more progressive textures; and there is an element of that sense of ‘Bach the explorer’ in her new recording of the Goldbergs.

Another aspect to note is the move from the Steinway of 1999 to her beloved Fazioli, which she finds a most ‘creative’ make of piano that doesn’t lose its ‘ring’ at lower dynamic …