Angela Hewitt Beethoven: Variations

Canada's Angela Hewitt would be on anybody's list of the world's great pianists, but she has been known as a Bach specialist. Her cycle of Beethoven's piano sonatas on Hyperion has, to an extent, been what you might expect: technically precise, individualistic, a bit idiosyncratic. What listeners may not have been prepared for is how high the highs are. Here it is absolutely essential to stick around through the whole program. Hewitt's Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31, No. 2 ("Tempest"), has odd features: violent accents in the outer movements, and a curious de-emphasis of the octave ornament figure that plays such an important structural role in the slow movement.

Angela Hewitt’s acclaimed recordings of Bach on the piano have received the highest critical acclaim and found their way into thousands of homes, selling nearly 400,000 copies since her recording of the Inventions burst onto the scene in 1994. Now for the first time Angela’s complete solo Bach is available as a boxed set of 15 CDs at a special price. A perfect gift for the few music-lovers left in the world who have not experienced these matchless performances; and for those who have, a chance to fall in love all over again.