A passacaglia is at the sombre end on a scale of emotions. It is usually in triple time and with a ground bass, a recurring melody as a solid, ponderous fixed point. With Bach the ostinato is chiselled deeply into the bedrock. Above it ingenious patterns float in ever wilder flight through 20 variations.Beethoven’s piano sonata reminds you of Bach’s passacaglia, but in Beethovian envelopment, with a great wealth of musical ideas unfolding in changing melodies and great dynamic contrasts through all three movements. A quite simple and altogether prosaic tune is the germ of one of the most fascinating pieces in all of musical history, the Art of the Fugue. Angela Hewitt plays the last eight movements of this magnificent work.Angela HewittAngela Hewitt is one of the world’s greatest pianists. There isn’t a prominent concert hall in the world she hasn’t captivated on her sold-out tours, and after having recorded Bach’s greatest piano works over a period of eleven years – which the Guardian called “one of the most awe-inspiring recordings of our time” – she has won a reputation as the Bach pianist of Bach pianists.Programme:Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750): Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582, arr. D’IndyLudwig van Beethoven (1770–1827): Piano sonatas no. 31 in A-flat major, op. 110Johann Sebastian Bach: Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080