Photo courtesy of the Friends of Chamber Music
Angela Hewitt demonstrated on Saturday, Oct. 18 that not only is she a superb musician, but that she is a musical poet. Hewitt performed at the Folly Theater for the 50th-anniversary season of the Friends of Chamber Music Kansas City in a brilliant program featuring preludes, fugues and other works from the 18th through the 20th centuries.
Co-Artistic Director Hyeyeon Park described Hewitt as one of the “most revered of pianists” from the stage and stated that the program was meant to recognize the music and legacy of Johann Sebastian Bach.
While Bach is known for his mastery of the fugue, the program also included works by Felix Mendelssohn, Johannes Brahms, Dmitri Shostakovich and Samuel Barber. Hewitt specifically requested no applause until the end of the first half, allowing the audience to focus on the development of the prelude and fugue.
Fugues, and especially those of Bach, serve as a sort of “rocket science” for musicians. They are complex and difficult to compose and perform. Even after they fell out of popularity near the end of the Baroque era, other composers like Haydn and Mozart continued to study and utilize them as examples of fine music and rigorous musical pedagogy.
Hewitt opened the recital with six of the most popular of Bach’s preludes and fugues—from the beginning of his Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 from 1722. From the outset she exhibited sure technical command, with very clearly articulated fugal subjects and counter-subjects that were crisp and easy to hear and follow. It was in the preludes, however, that the poetry emerged. Each was played with great sensitivity—with subtle phrasing and dynamics and occasionally taking liberties with the tempo. Such was the case with the gentle and glistening Prelude in C Major, the dancelike lightness of the Prelude in D Major, and the elfin playfulness of the Prelude in D Minor. By contrast, the driving energy of the Prelude in C Minor and the elegiac quality of the Prelude in C-sharp Minor demonstrated the many moods and rhetorical approaches of the music of Bach.
Purists who favor their Bach on period keyboards might not have been satisfied with the sound, but the richness of tone and beauty of line were impressive, and Hewitt demonstrated utter pianistic mastery.
A Prelude and Fugue from Felix Mendelssohn’s Op. 35 followed, and the effect of the romantic flourishes that began the work was spectacular; it was clear that we were in a different sound world. The fugue again showed the structural clarity heard in Bach’s music, but with more emotionally charged content. The slow opening tempo increased in dramatic intensity near the end, and the chorale tune that Mendelssohn floated above the rapid bass line was beautiful.
The first half of the program ended with a technical showpiece: the finale from American composer Samuel Barber’s Op. 26 Piano Sonata—not surprisingly, it is a fugue. But what a fugue and what a performance it was. Hewitt brought out the characteristic American aspects of the music—the crisp syncopations as well as the jazzy and bluesy passages. Technique abounded, with brilliant pounding chords, hand crossing and driving energy.
Johannes Brahms’ Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24 was the single work on the second half of the program. A substantial composition written in 1861, the music comprises 25 brief variations and an intense fugue on a theme from the third movement of Handel’s Harpsichord Suite No. 1.
Once again, Hewitt captured the many emotions and moods of the music, from the opening two-part stately aria, through variations that were, in turn, playful, soulful, fiery, passionate and dreamy. The more rhythmically intense variations occur near the end of the piece, followed by the finale–the fugue. Penetrating, complex and passionate, the conclusion of the work was brought to a powerful and dramatic ending by the pianist.
After a well-deserved standing ovation, Hewitt returned to the stage of the Folly Theater. For an encore, she played a lovely arrangement of Bach’s recitative and aria from his Cantata #208, better known as “Sheep May Safely Graze.” The arrangement was by the early 20th-century American pianist and composer Mary Howe, and served as a tender and elegant ending to the evening.
For more information on upcoming concerts, visit chambermusic.org
Reviewed on October 18, 2025
