Chatter fades as the lights dim. The energy of the concert hall is palpable. For a moment, stillness. But when Angela Hewitt enters the stage, the audience erupts in applause as a gentle smile tiptoes across her face.
She gracefully seats herself at her piano. When silence resumes once again, she begins. Angela’s fingers dance across the keys with the flow and ease of a ballerina in motion. It’s a beautiful thing to see; it’s a beautiful thing to hear.
The classical music concert is taking place in Ottawa where a local girl of international renown has come home. Concertgoers are rapt to the last note. Prolonged and exuberant applause wrap up a magical affair.
Afterwards, backstage, Angela graciously meets with concertgoers, who clamour about her for a photo, a signed CD, or both. Joy and reverence abound.
Angela Hewitt is arguably Canada’s best known classical pianist. Her award-winning cycle of all the major keyboard works of Bach for Hyperion Records was described as being “one of the record glories of our age,” by The Sunday Times.
She has recorded over 200 albums for Hyperion and has won four Juno Awards. Her discography is massive, including Scarlatti, Schumann, Debussy and Messiaen.
And in 2016, she began a huge concert project, The Bach Odyssey, which would see her performing all the keyboard works of J.S. Bach in a series of 12 concerts. They would last between 2016 and 2020, presenting the entire cycle in London, New York City, Ottawa, Tokyo and Florence.
Born into a musical family in Ottawa, Angela’s father was a cathedral organist, choir master and music teacher. However, she was encouraged to have a well-rounded upbringing and studied ballet, violin and recorder as well as being involved in many other childhood activities.
Angela was an exceptional talent. At age four, she gave her first performance; as a five-year-old, she won a music scholarship; and a year later, she enrolled at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Interestingly, her childhood dream was to perform in a musical, so she could combine singing and dancing.
Her performance at the 1985 Toronto International Bach Piano competition, held in memory of Glenn Gould, launched her into the international spotlight. It allowed her to record Bach solo keyboard music, leading critics to anoint her as one of the great Bach interpreters.
And although her repertoire ranges from French Baroque composers like Couperin to contemporary, her performances of Bach have led her to capture the acclaim of critics and audiences across the globe.
In 2004, Angela founded the annual Trasimeno Musical Festival in Umbria, Italy, in which she is featured in seven concerts over seven days, as a recitalist, chamber musician, song accompanist and conductor.
“Back in 2002, I rather rashly purchased a piece of land on a hill overlooking beautiful Lake Trasimeno in Umbria, Italy (between Florence and Rome), and then I built a house,” says Angela. “In 2004, I discovered the Castle of the Knights of Malta in Magione and its stunning 15th-century courtyard, which is ideal for chamber music concerts. The following year, we had our first festival and people came from all over the world to be there. Many of them return year after year.”
Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, the festival was cancelled in both 2020 and now 2021.
Angela often plays in her hometown of Ottawa and is an ambassador for Orkidstra, a program in Ottawa’s inner city, where commitment, teamwork and tolerance are taught while learning music.
She has received an OBE [Order of the British Empire] from the Queen and, in 2015, was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada status.
Yes, one could say Angela Hewitt has led a charmed life.
She is considered the premier interpreter of Bach piano music in the world, a title once held by another Canadian, Glenn Gould. Yet Hewitt is not too thrilled by comparisons to Gould.
“Gould and I are exact opposites,” she says. “He kept his distance from people; I love the contact I have with my audience. He hated the whole touring bit; I thrive on it. He hated the colour red and sunshine; I adore both! I think he had a problem with the fact that in performance, it’s not always perfect. Things happen. One has to live with that. You can’t control everything. It takes great courage and discipline to get up night after night in a different city, on a different piano, playing different programs, and always trying to play perfectly. I think he simply didn’t have the make up for being a concert pianist on the road. He preferred to work in seclusion.”
So, recent events have affected Angela dearly.
The Bach Odyssey world concert tour that started in 2016 – wherein she would have performed every Bach sonata live in five capitals – was supposed to finish in 2020. It was sidelined by the pandemic.
Besides COVID, Fate played a second trick. In February 2020, her beloved Fazioli piano was destroyed by movers in Berlin – the Fazioli she had often described as her “best friend” was no more. The destruction of her piano made international news in the arts world as people wondered how she would recover from the shock, and if a suitable replacement could be found.
She would need to test out three new Faziolis and, if she found one she liked, she would have to have the unique 4th peddle added to it.
“A piano takes on the characteristics of the player using it – I was the only person to have played on that piano in its 17 years!” That piano even had the privilege of always being serviced by the same technician.
Since concert pianists plan their appearance schedule and preparation years in advance, the ongoing uncertainty caused by the pandemic is more than troublesome.
“I’m probably on the road for at least 10 months, if not more, of the year. I haven’t counted the number of concerts in a year for a long time. A few years back, it was something like 133 days of concerts, masterclasses, recording sessions — and that didn’t count travel and practising at home.”
The need to isolate in one place saw Angela in quarantine in Ottawa, where she has an apartment. Stuck in quarantine, she naturally took advantage of the time to practise, although she had already planned a short sabbatical for late 2020. As she reported to The Globe and Mail, neighbours complained about the noise! “It’s not noise; it’s Beethoven!” she explained to them.
Angela’s last live concert before a full audience in Ottawa was in the fall of 2019. After the masterful performance, there was an informal meet and greet with audience members. A young teenager brought her recently won piano trophy from the Ottawa Kiwanis Music Festival to show Angela and wanted to pose for a photograph with her. Angela had won the same honour when she was a teenager in Ottawa. The encounter made the young pianist’s day.
Given her influence on up-and-coming pianists, Angela encourages parents of talented students to allow their children to be children.
“I get very upset these days when you see so-called child ‘prodigies’ on YouTube playing Chopin etudes at age seven or something ridiculous,” she says. “Of course, a child may be very gifted, but it’s also important to let a child be a child. You only get one crack at childhood, and these are such important years. I’m so happy I did many other things other than piano and school.”
“How fortunate I was to have a father who was a cathedral organist and played all those great organ works with such passion, intelligence, and dramatic flair! I remember as a young child holding my breath during the G Minor Fantasia and Fugue, the C Minor Passacaglia — knowing it would all be resolved triumphantly at the end,” says Angela. “My father also arranged the great Toccata and Fugue in D minor for the whole family — two pianos, eight hands, when I was maybe 10 years old. I danced to Bach, sang Bach, played him on the violin and recorder, tried him out on the harpsichord and, in the end, put all that experience into playing his music on the piano.”
What, then, is the best approach for parents if their child has a prodigal talent in any field?
“Give them the love of learning, let them still be children, make sure they have lots of friends, give them a good all-rounded education and, of course, encourage them in a good way.”
When Angela was little, her mother kept her occupied, giving her pieces of string tied in knots. The toddler devoted hours to patiently undoing each knot.
“I’ve always liked unravelling complicated music,” she says. “It’s the terrific vitality in [Bach’s] music that is important to me, as well as its relationship to dance.”
Many have noted that Angela’s movements at the piano are characteristic of someone who has studied dance. Her arms waltz at the keyboard when playing.
“Most of Bach is dance music, regardless of its title. So, a lot of the spirit in it, that wonderful joy comes from the dance and that I feel inside. Also, it’s beautiful music, and you can keep playing it and never get tired of it in a way you would in some other pieces.”
Playing Bach is also great for the mind: “Playing Bach, it’s like repeating a tongue-twister a hundred times over, at top speed. Bach really is something for the brain!”
Regardless of her polished appearance and well-travelled and cultured vocation, Angela is also a self-reliant and down-to-earth Canadian.
“I don’t have a personal assistant,” she says. “I book all my own flights. I run my own online shop, which is a corner of my living room, taking the packages to the post office myself. I’m my own cleaning lady – it’s good exercise! In short, most of those things that people imagine I couldn’t possibly do since I’m a concert pianist, I do. And all that while constantly learning and memorizing new repertoire.”
NASA famously sent a recording of Glenn Gould playing Bach in its 1977 Voyager 1 spacecraft. In 2021, if someone decided to send “messages” to outer space, would they include music? And if so, by which composer, and played by whom?
“It was the Goldberg Variations, which was an excellent choice! There is no greater music,” says Angela. “And music is the universal language. Bach is perhaps the composer with the most universal appeal because his music sounds as fresh today as when it was composed 300 years ago. The rhythm is infectious, and the glorious melodies. If you’re looking for another Canadian Bach interpreter who has also twice recorded the ‘Goldberg’ on the piano, I might be able to suggest one….,” she says with a twinkle in her eye.
Angela Hewitt has worked with authors Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes in London, Vienna, and New York; and with actor Roger Allam in Venice and at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. Her recordings and live performances have featured in such films as The Tree of Life (2011), The Life Aquatic (2004), The Impassioned Eye (2003) — a documentary on Henri Cartier-Bresson and, in 2018, The Children Act (based on the novel by Ian McEwan and starring Emma Thompson).
Although she has been asked to perform around the world for decades and mostly lives in London, she has never forgotten her Canadian roots.
She co-funded Piano Six, a group of Canadians pianists dedicated to bringing classical performance to rural areas across Canada.
In March 2020, when all concert activity and travelling abruptly stopped, Angela went online to share daily offerings of short pieces — many of which form the basis of teaching material. Her fans were thrilled, and she was happy to inspire many people to go back to the piano. She participated in some of the first streamed concerts to be initiated online during the pandemic and, in January 2021, she revealed that she had a new piano.
Angela shares a delicious anecdote: a taxi driver in Atlanta, Georgia, once asked her what she did for a living. When Angela told her, she replied “that sounds relaxin’.”
“Yes, well… if only people knew! An osteopath in London said to me some 30 years ago when I said I was a concert pianist, “Oh no! There’s no profession more stressful!”
“For me, music is about sharing and moving others. It’s a hard life but a great one.”
For more information, visit https://angelahewitt.com/
SNAPSHOT
If you were to meet your 20-year-old self, what advice would you give her?
“Always make your own decisions (which is what I’ve done anyway throughout my life). I wouldn’t change anything that’s happened in my life. It’s good to feel that way.”
Who or what has influenced you the most? And why?
“Besides my parents (who were both great musicians), I would have to say my former piano teacher (who taught me from the age of 15 to 22), French pianist Jean-Paul Sévilla. He shared with me his great knowledge of the piano repertoire, especially his love and mastery of French music, and was a wonderful pianist himself. He also taught his students about all the arts, and it was thanks to him that I went to live in Paris when I was 20 years old.”
What are you most grateful for?
“Having been brought up by musician parents who understood what it was all about, who taught me the right habits from the beginning, but also who let me have a great childhood, full of many different activities (including classical ballet for 20 years from the age of three).”
How do you measure success?
“Playing a piece you have worked very hard on, and finally memorizing it and performing it well in public — that’s success that gives great satisfaction. Material success, as we have seen with this pandemic, can vanish in an instant. I suppose success is when concert promoters think of you when they are putting together their season. You have to have something they want to sell. When you have that something and have totally kept your integrity, and got there because you’re good and worked hard, then I think that’s success. But I don’t really like to think about ‘success.’ It’s very fragile.”
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