Hewitt Offers Unfettered View of Bach

Quietly uplifting, the joys in Angela Hewitt’s Bach playing are the result of a steady accumulation of positive virtues: clarity, good taste, impeccable technique and a persona of unassertive elegance. The Canadian pianist, a longtime specialist and a prizewinner in the music of Bach, held a large audience at rapt attention, creating musical communication through understatement.

At her local debut, in Glendale’s Alex Theatre Sunday, she delivered beauteous, unaggressive Bach, in a brisk and logically unfolding set of “Goldberg” Variations, preceded by four Preludes and Fugues from Book I of the “Well-Tempered Clavier,” and the “Italian” Concerto.

Hewitt plays with great assurance and a measurable lack of self-consciousness. She lets the music of Bach emerge on its own, without histrionics. Most pianists these days add themselves into the equation, but not Hewitt. The focus is entirely on the music, and the result is a revealing vision of the music’s structure and geometry, its essential abstraction--although we find out little about Hewitt herself. By leaving Bach alone, it comes out right.

The subtleties in the 30 parts of the “Goldbergs” spoke out articulately and unfettered, each item clearly stated, as were also the four featured preludes and fugues that began the evening--in particular those in G-sharp-minor and A major, which sounded sharp and bright, and the “Italian” concerto, a model of musical directness.