‘After five days of recording sessions last August, Angela Hewitt returned in the small hours of September 1 to give a complete "performance" for a few friends of the Bach's Aria with Diverse Variations. Fortunately, the engineers decided to keep the tapes rolling, for this, according to Hyperion's executive director, Ted Perry, is the "take" Hewitt and Hyperion decided to release. The resulting record is a miracle of music-making at its most instinctive and spontaneous. Even by Hewitt's exalted standards it is extraordinary: in the brilliant toccatas, she creates, with her amazing articulation, the illusion of the music being plucked by the modern piano's hammers; her virtuosity and joie de vivre in the fast variations—try 1, 14 and "the most dangerous of all the toccatas", No 20—take the breath away. She also penetrates the heart of the great 13th and 25th variations without false romantic sentiment. The reprise of the Aria at the close—after a majestic variation 29—is shattering. If you only buy one Bach album in this anniversary year, let it be this one. A desert-island disc!’ (The Sunday Times)