Angela Hewitt’s performance of the “Art of Fugue” was an impressive display of musical talent, memorization, and pure human endurance. I took piano lessons from kindergarten to second grade and I remember the time and effort it took to memorize and perform Beethoven’s, “Ode to Joy”. This is hardly comparable to Hewitt’s accomplishment; however, it allows me to put it into perspective. After 10 minutes of listening to her play the piano, all I could think about was much time she must have spent practicing this piece. After 80 minutes, I was speechless.
As I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, I am not a musical person. Music simply doesn’t speak to me the way it does to many other people. Although I don’t speak music, I am able to appreciate the fact that other people do. In listening to Hewitt’s 90-minute musical marathon I could feel the passion and energy she was pouring into the music. Watching her, you could see this as well. It was almost as if she was possessed by the music and it had taken over her body, she was one with the piece.
Each time there was a new section of music Hewitt reentered the world of the living and as soon as she hydrated herself she jumped back into her music world. I thought the various sections of the piece were very effective broken up as they were. Had the entire score been 90 straight minutes of piano I’m not sure Hewitt nor the audience would have survived. The small pauses allowed everyone to regroup themselves and fully absorb the music.
As I looked around at the audience surrounding us, I noticed that we brought down the median age quite significantly. Most of the audience was over the age of 60 years old except for a 10-year-old boy sitting behind me. I was almost as impressed with him as I was with Ms Hewitt. There is no way I would be patient enough to sit through a 90-minute piano performance without speaking at the age of 10. I could hardly do it at the age of 19.
Because music is not my forte, I appreciated Hewitt’s introduction and explanation of each “contrapunctus”. Even though most of what she said still went over my head, I appreciated the effort and time she put in to explaining her art to her audience. It was clear that Hewitt wanted us to join her in her journey throughout the piece. Something that especially stood out to me was something that she said in the very beginning as began her introduction. Ms Hewitt mentioned the ending of the piece and a traditional way that most people play the ending and the way that she preferred to play it, according to the way she interpreted the music. I thought this statement really spoke to how invested our performer was in her music. Although it was clearly important to Ms Hewitt that she pleased the audience, to me, her own enjoyment and investment was even more important. Ms Hewitt’s music marathon was truly a beautiful experience.
