Bach - Art Of Fugue - Hewitt

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Outstanding Bach

I think this is quite magnificent. I have loved Angela Hewitt's Bach interpretations for many years and, like many of her admirers, have been waiting a long time for her to bring us the Art Of Fugue. It has been worth the wait.

As Hewitt herself says, this can be a forbidding work. It is dense, complex and unrelieved by anything in the way of tunes or dances; it is intellectual and, I think, deeply spiritual. In a recent article Hewitt quotes Wilfrid Mellers as saying that in The Art of Fugue, Bach "plays to God and himself in an empty church". That sounds about right to me, and it means that it needs something pretty special in the playing to realise its full depth and to make it accessible to those of us who want to sit in the church and listen.

To me, Hewitt manages both. She is technically excellent and the fugal lines have a wonderful clarity and fluency. She uses rubato sparingly but sensitively to shape each piece, and the depth of her scholarship and engagement with the music shine through every bar. It's impeccable Bach playing which comes out of years of immersion in and love for his music.

I also wholeheartedly approve of Hewitt's decision to leave the final canon unfinished as it was on Bach's death, rather than include any of the completions by others. However fine these may be, the poignant impact of that sudden, uncompleted end followed after a long pause by the chorale Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein 'Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit' is almost physical and makes a very fitting close to this wonderful work.

Hewitt's scholarship is also evident in her typically detailed, thoughtful and readable notes which give a fine insight into the work. The recorded sound by Hyperion is (of course) excellent and the presentation very attractive. I think this is an outstanding disc all round, and I recommend it very, very warmly.