We went to the Assembly Rooms on the Sunday night to hear Angela Hewitt, a regular visitor. She began with Mozart’s C minor sonata, which didn’t always seem totally secure. Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata was more settled and played with complete assurance. During this piece I felt the tuning of the Fazioli piano was coming slightly adrift, and sure enough the tuner appeared in the interval and was at work for some time.
The second half began with another Mozart sonata, K576 in D major, again one that was’t written primary as an exercise for his pupils. The final piece was a performance of Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin that alternated between the virtuosic and the reflective. I used to play some of this (not the final movement!) and still have a score. I’d heard the orchestral version on Radio 3 a few days previously which was a useful comparison, although there are two extra movements in the piano original. As with Hewitt’s interpretation of Liszt’s Sonata a few years ago, it was clear that she enjoys more recent pieces that reference the baroque. We were told this had not been programmed with the Armistice anniversary in mind, but it was obviously appropriate to it. The encore was the same composer’s Pavane pour une infante défunte.
We’d observed the centenary of the Armistice earlier at church, appending half an hour of readings and music to our usual service. So it was a six-anthem morning, perhaps the most notable inclusion being the addition of the Russian Kontakion to our current repertoire.