DVD
Bach Performance on the Piano [DVD Video]
$27.51
About this product:
Angela Hewitt in her bid to out do Glenn Gould must be commanded for her bold undertaking even if one wonders about the motives. Playing Bach live is a very courageous endeavor.
In this well filmed but quite long DVD, Angela Hewitt is kindly condescending to teach us, common mortals, about Bach but mostly to make us understand why we would not be able to reach her pinnacle: at the top of the Bach mountain, there is only room for one and even Glenn would have to concede... Not once, he is mentioned! Considering that Bach's playing in the XX century truly exploded with him, it is somewhat surprising in my opinion. Not that Gould's playing should not be exempt of criticism, but his contribution to Bach music is invaluable, like it or not.
Of course the basics, the backgrounder about Baroque music style and Bach in particular is presented and this is good: the various editions, the ornementation, the parallel with string players, the differences between Harpsichord and modern piano -she really hates these harpsichordists doesn't she?-. All this is fine.
But after 148 minutes filmed in the Fazioli factory, the equivalent of a surgery block clean manufacturing grounds compared to the Steinway digs for instance, one really wonders what they'll take home and work on.
Did we learn about how to play Bach, the rules of articulations or did we learn about Ms. Hewitt own cooking and given her tone, how unlikely we would come close to having the imagination, taste, talent she possesses in order to approach this music.
She mentions Ottawa Canada, but one feels she is now safely back from the "colony" to the civilized motherland...
The problem is that Ms. Hewitt is unaware of some recent developments that have exposed rules of small speech like articulation and their reasons, their relations with the symbolism of Bach music (Teregulov 1993, Nosina 1991, 1993 re-issued in 2006).
Therefore she presents her own interpretation of rules -my father did this...- and often goes against the grain. For instance she explains that Bach's markings are supposed to be taken as rules in a piece when they appear at one spot while in fact, his markings were signaling a particular character, even an exception to the known rules, those very rules known to Kappellmeisters and thus never written on keyboard scores but clearly indicated on orchestral scores or string scores. Dear Daniel Muller-Shott is obliging with an overdone Baroque sound inflating and deflating and his eyes betray the devotion to the great priestess of the cult...
So as a result Ms Hewitt often brushes over rules and talks more about her own figuring out what works for her than truly offering students regardless of their level, real, workable rules that universally enhance the polyphony in their playing.
Thus in her bid to become the Bach interpreter of our troubled time, Ms. Hewitt indeed in this DVD reveals herself to non musicians something her playing anyway does to musicians who know the rules.
It is well filmed although sometimes the reflection of the scripter can be seen on the gleaming Fazioli.
A curiosity but one to consume with moderation...
