MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Bach: The Keyboard Concertos - 1

Hybrid/Multi Channel SACD - playable on all Compact Disc Players

GRAMOPHONE MAGAZINE RECORDING OF THE MONTH (Sept 2005)

"Angela Hewitt's journey through Bach's solo keyboard music for Hyperion has been one of the glories of recent years. Her pianism - truly an art that conceals art - has won her numerous admirers around the world so it is good that she has been allowed to add these two enticing extras to the series. And how better to illustrate the universality of Bach's language than to pair a Canadian pianist with an Australian ensemble for a British label?

The biggest surprise for me when listening to the discs is to find both a harpsichord and a piano in the same sound world. Hewitt argues that a harpsichord is very much part of the Baroque orchestral world and 'there is no reason why it shouldn't be part of a modern-day recording': a fair point and you soon get used to it. It's especially effective in the Fifth Brandenburg where the piano is truly allowed to soar in its soloistic flight without having to worry about a continuo role. Two CDs of the month? Sure!"
(Gramophone)

'Her [Hewitt's] playing is absolutely captivating: she decorates the solo part with playful, come-hither ornamentation - twirls, flutters, arabesques - and yet it never disturbs the clear, logical path she forges through the course of each work. Her staccato touch has the force of sprung steel and yet her legato line is a miracle of smoothness and transparency. An absolute joy'
(Gramophone)

"Angela Hewitt's combination of a lively and never heavy touch, unassertive virtuosity, natural phrasing and wistfully expressive slow movements, corresponds to what many people hope to find in Bach. It is playing memorable for its poise, for its sense and its sensibility."
(MusicWeb June 2005)

"(Listeners) who enjoy Bach on the piano will find much to admire and to please the senses in these performances whose modesty and freedom from intrusive idiosyncracy makes them more rewarding than rival piano versions."
Five Stars BBC Music Mag (July 2005)

Angela Hewitt's Bach recordings are by now self-recommending. Only after playing these concertos with numerous ensembles across the world did Angela decide that the Australian Chamber Orchestra were the perfect collaborators for these two discs.

One is immediately struck by the quality of chamber-music playing as phrases are passed between soloist and orchestra. Rhythms are buoyant, tempos lively, the spirit of dance is never far away in the fast movements and a perfectly vocal quality pervades the sung lines of the slow movements.

Volume One also includes Brandenburg Concerto No 5 and the Triple Concerto in A minor, performed with Richard Tognetti on violin and Alison Mitchell on flute.