Mitsuko Uchida - piano
The Independent, 24 April 2012
Michael Church
This was Schubert with wings; Uchida seemed to hover over the keyboard, keeping the music’s wayward impulses under hair-trigger control. …. The way she played the last sonata [D.960] was haunting and beautiful beyond words.
(Royal Festival Hall, 23 April 2012, final 3 Schubert piano sonatas)
Chicago Tribune, 30 March 2012
John von Rhein
Mitsuko Uchida’s more or less annual visits to Orchestra Hall rank among the most life-affirming experiences granted to local concertgoers; …it is the intensity of her involvement in music at the deepest level of expression that makes her performances so communicative, so transporting, to so many listeners.
The Guardian, 2 March 2012
Martin Kettle
Uchida is in many ways its ideal interpreter, bringing to the Concerto the same clarity of articulation and driving engagement that characterises her Mozart and Beethoven alike. Her exquisite encore, the second of Schoenberg’s Six Little Pieces Op 19, was a gem.
(Schoenberg 1942 Piano Concerto, London Philharmonia, Esa-Pekka Salonen)
The Guardian, 8 Dec 2011
George Hall
Immediately striking a deeper note was Uchida's perfectly placed opening chord in the Beethoven. From that single gesture onwards, she held her audience's attention effortlessly with playing that was consistently observant. Her alertness to niceties of line and texture shone a clear light on the concerto's unique qualities, and her lucid approach was finely seconded by Davis and the orchestra.
(Beethoven PC No4, LSO, Sir Colin Davis)
The Herald, 28 Nov 2011
Michael Tumelty
Uchida has an inner power, as intellectual and emotional as it is physical. Her structural command of the music was awesome: I have seldom heard that Schubert Sonata move so fluidly through its immense architecture. There was an unusual degree of strength in her Schumann and Chopin performances – and I don’t mean force. And, in the Schubert, the magical sidesteps where Schubert suddenly folds a melting harmonic change into the texture were breathtakingly realised by this great musician.
(solo recital Glasgow Royal Concert Hall)
Guardian, 6 October 2011
Erica Jeal
She is ideally equipped to bring out the contradictions of the feisty yet uneasy Third Concerto: what other player can turn from thunder to sweetness and back again so mercurially and so convincingly, without seeming to exploit the contrast for effect? The slow movement began distantly but with absolute focus, as if Uchida were playing in a locked room. It was the highlight of another mesmerising performance from a pianist who always seems entirely on Beethoven’s wavelength.
(London Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven Concerto no.3, Sir Colin Davis)
La Poste, 13 September 2011
… le jeu de la soliste est aujourd’hui d’une maîtrise olympienne dans la subtilité des nuances, la délicatesse du toucher, le goût raffiné des ornements…
(The Cleveland Orchestra, Mozart Concerti K466 and K595, Decca)
The Independent, 29 May 2011
Edward Seckerson
“Uchida is such a magical player. Her nose for atmosphere is transforming and with each modulation here we breathed a different air. Hers was a very contained rapture in the slow movement and in the finale the give and take with Davis and the orchestra was the very essence of what concerto playing is all about.”
The Guardian, 27 May 2011
Guy Dammann
“the recitative-like section… glowed with Uchida’s customary intensity and fineness of feeling. The teasing third movement, too, was everything one might wish for from a pair who, at their best, form a union few gods would presume to bless.”
The Independent, 26 March 2011
Edward Seckerson
“It’s in moments like this that Uchida is peerless. She can change the way the air moves in the hall in an instant. The music of the opening chords of the slow movement seemed to start before the keys were depressed. She had already weighed and tested them in her head. Magical.”
(Beethoven Piano Concerto 3 in C minor op 37, Royal Festival Hall London, Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchestra)
The Times, 28 March 2011
Richard Morrison
“Somehow this most delicate and refined of pianists summoned unsuspected reserves of granite and gunpowder to whip up a storm in Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. Of course there were also the trademark pianissimos hovering on the verge of silence and beguilingly veiled timbres, but the overall approach – spiky, chunky, even aggressive – was totally counter-intuitive, and enthralling”
(Beethoven Piano Concerto 3 in C minor op 37, Royal Festival Hall London, Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchestra)
The Guardian, 29 March 2011
Martin Kettle
“…a vibrant account of Beethoven's third piano concerto, unwrapping the audacities of the first-movement cadenza as if playing it for the first time, yet also achieving wonderfully judged delicacy in the largo. Uchida was also the soloist, two nights later, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with members of the BRSO. It is hard to imagine the piano in Beethoven's early quintet for winds and piano being better played than it was by Uchida”
(Beethoven Piano Concerto 3 in C minor op 37, Royal Festival Hall London, Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchestra)
Philadelphia Inquirer, 20 January 2011
David Patrick Stearns
Her sense of Mozartean concision came into play in some of Schumann's more concentrated instances of lyricism, but with an added rhetorical weight appropriate to the half-century that had passed since Mozart's death. Her customary clarity of vision and articulation would have made Beethoven's Piano Sonata (Op. 90) memorable, but she also charted the beginning, middle, and end to Beethoven's thought process - important even in the music's most lighthearted moments. What all these qualities come down to is an instinctual musical honesty.
(Schumann Davidsbündlertänze Op.6, Beethoven Sonata Op.90, solo recital)
Classica, December 2010/January 2011
Stephane Friédérich
Le toucher de Mitsuko Uchida est d’une puissance, d’un éclat et d’une délicatesse magnifique. …Chez Mitsuko Uchida, la simplicité du discours, la complexité de l’harmonie sont parées d’une tension et d’une sensualité qui laissent sans voix.
(Schumann Davidsbündlertänze Op6, Decca 4782280, Choc du mois)
The Financial Times, 8 October 2010
Andrew Clark
When a pianist as ‘complete’ as Mitsuko Uchida is on the platform, everyone is made to feel up there beside her, drawn in by the integrity of her interpretative decisions rather than dazzled by showy virtuosity.’
(Royal Festival Hall London, 5 October 2010, solo recital)
Beethoven E minor Sonata Op90, Royal Festival Hall London, 5 October 2010
‘Many players play the first movement with whirlwind urgency as if it’s being harried by a malign fate, but Uchida gave it a completely different feeling. She made those uprushing figures seem willed rather than flayed, as if we were witnessing a hard destiny voluntarily embraced rather than imposed. It’s rare to see a great piece convincingly reshaped; to see one given a completely different ethical dimension is even rarer, the kind of thing one witnesses only once or twice in a decade.’
Ivan Hewett, 6 October 2010
The Telegraph
Schumann Davidsbündlertänze Op6, Decca 4782280, CD of the Week
‘Uchida captures the split personality without exaggerating the different moods and humours with which Schumann imparts his two characters. Her limpid touch and inwardness in the Eusebius pieces are of spellbinding beauty … and her Florestan flourishes are not merely excuses for virtuosic flamboyance: she always hears the music in Schumann’s bravura. …Schumann the poet and virtuoso evoked in perfect balance.’
Hugh Canning, 3 October 2010
Sunday Times
The Independent, 7 May 2010
Edward Seckerson
Uchida conveys a unique rapture in this music – and it’s all in the touch and the timing. That extraordinary modulation in the slow movement was truly a frozen moment, the defining chord filling the silence but not a split-second too soon or too late.
(London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis, Mozart Concerto K.453)
The Plain Dealer, 16 April 2010
Zachary Lewis
If it’s profound statements you seek, hold out for the Larghetto. The slow middle movement proves one of those experiences none but Uchida can mastermind, a stroll through some heavenly musical garden, where time and gravity hold no sway.
(The Cleveland Orchestra, Mozart Concerti K466 and K595)
Chicago Tribune, 20 March 2010
John von Rhein
What was common to both performances was the limpid freshness and crystalline delicacy of Uchida’s pianism. Over the years her playing has become as diaphanous as her concert attire, informed by a deeply musical vision that transforms her exchanges with the orchestra into inspired conversation. She does not so much play these concertos as exist in them, illuminating both the larger and smaller musical shapes in a wonderfully personal manner that is immune to idiosyncrasy.
(Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Mozart Concerti K453 and K595)
The Plain Dealer, 21 November 2009
Zachary Lewis
An expert interpreter of Mozart, Uchida knows better than most how to maintain transparency in both orchestra and keyboard, and how to apply gusto, sorrow and playfulness in quintessential Classical fashion.
(The Cleveland Orchestra, Mozart Piano Concerti K.488 and K.491, Decca 478 1524)
The Evening Standard, 21 May 2009
Barry Millington
The Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida has a very special gift: not only is she able to make you forget that the piano is a percussion instrument but she can also persuade you that you are no longer in the concert hall at all.
(International Piano Series, Royal Festival Hall: Mozart, Berg, Beethoven, Schumann)
The Philadelphia Inquirer, 29 April 2009
Daniel Webster
Her playing built flawlessly crafted forms, the dynamics carefully plotted to complete her sense of the narrative progress of each movement, each work. Her sense of form expressed itself in the shape of the entire program, which built from the clear magic of Mozart to a climax in Schumann. In the Mozart, Uchida led the innocent tune into darker areas, found depths of emotion that spoke quietly. The playing was so modestly presented, each note singing, that the music’s full impact was felt only in the silence at
the end.
(Philadelphia Chamber Music Recital: Mozart, Berg, Beethoven, Schumann)
The Independent, 10 March 2009
Edward Seckerson
And as Uchida watched her colleague like a hawk (she is as giving a collaborative player as she is solo) we could see the story of this music begin to unfold on her face. Her underpinning of the texture was an unselfish force for good throughout: she is such a great listener, always aware of her place in the harmony – and the harmony really glowed here.
(Brahms: Piano Quintet, Hagen Quartet, Wigmore Hall)
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, 6 December 2008
Seated at the piano…Uchida applies her trademark feathery touch and shapes music not just of A-major joy but also of creeping melancholy. Ceding dominance routinely to flutist Joshua Smith and clarinetist Franklin Cohen, she transforms seemingly functional passages into music of real power.
(Mozart: Piano concertos K488 & K491, Cleveland Orchestra)
The Guardian, 27 November 2008
Erica Jeal
The partnership between Mitsuko Uchida and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe continues to give off a glow. This is especially true in the Mozart piano concertos … six movements adding up to about an hour of Mozart, and at no point during any of them did the melodies Uchida was spinning ever seem to end – it is one of the great beauties of her playing that, however much the music repeats itself, she always has something more to say; the introspective slow movement [of K488] brought out that hushed, confiding tone that the piano seems to save only for Uchida.
(Mozart: Piano concertos K488 & K491, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Royal Festival Hall)
The Independent, 26 October 2008
Anna Picard
It’s difficult to imagine a stronger line-up for Berg’s Chamber Concerto for piano, violin and 13 wind instruments than Mitsuko Uchida, Christian Tetzlaff, Ensemble Intercontemporain and Pierre Boulez. Uchida’s diamantine pianism and Tetzlaff’s pure tone combine perfectly. The sound is crisp, the playing suave, the direction alert.
(Berg: Chamber Concerto, Pierre Boulez, Christian Tetzlaff, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Decca)
The Guardian, 24 October 2008
Andrew Clements
…both soloists, Mitsuko Uchida and Christian Tetzlaff, are perfectly attuned to Boulez’s approach – they have given a number of performances of the Chamber Concerto before - and the combination of accuracy and textural clarity with the highly wrought expressiveness that is the essence of Berg’s music is perfectly caught. The authority and logic of the performance are compelling, and this is easily the best version of this intractable work to appear on CD.
(Berg: Chamber Concerto, Pierre Boulez, Christian Tetzlaff, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Decca)
Evening Standard, 17 October 2008
Fiona Maddocks
The shock came when Ian Bostridge was joined by pianist Mitsuko Uchida for Britten’s cycle The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, written in August 1945 and dedicated to the tenor Peter Pears. Uchida attacked the thunderous opening of O my blacke Soule with an air of desperate terror, establishing the bleak but ever-changing intensity of all nine songs.
(Ian Bostridge, LSO St Luke’s London)
The Guardian, 1 October 2008
Guy Dammann
And if Mitsuko Uchida’s intelligent and minutely attentive style made for a predictably exemplary solo performance, the London Symphony Orchestra were her equal in every respect, matching her for precision of timing and rounded purity of tone. Watching Uchida can be almost as great a delight as hearing her. Beethoven’s magnificently extended trills seem to travel up her fingers from the keyboard, extending gradually along her arm before taking hold of her entire body, shimmering in loose silks. An avuncular Sir Colin Davis twinkled back, conducting for the most part with his playfully communicative eyes.
(Beethoven: Piano Concerto No4, Barbican Hall, 30 September 2008)
The Plain Dealer, 24 May 2008
Donald Rosenberg
As ever, Uchida was a model of poise and clarity, imbuing the folk-influenced material with fine rhythmic spring and molding the prayerful lines with reverent beauty. She provided ample tonal power to cut through the orchestra, including octave and scalewise passages with which Bartok creates whirlwinds of sound.
(Bartok Piano Concerto No3, Cleveland Orchestra, Franz Welser-Möst)
New York Times, 12 May 2008
Bernard Holland
She is, as ever, an engaging and completely fluent musician, and she has her own sense of values. One can argue with them for a while but not for long.
(Carnegie Hall recital: Schubert, Bach/Kurtag, Schumann)
The Guardian, 9 April 2008
Andrew Clements
Though some of the winning discs in the BBC Music Magazine's 2008 awards are unexpected, to say the least, there won't be much complaint from me about the one that has taken the top prize. Making Mitsuko Uchida's thrilling recording of Beethoven's Op 101 and Hammerklavier sonatas the magazine's disc of the year is a wonderful tribute, not only to a pair of outstanding performances, from a year that was distinguished by a number of exceptional piano discs, but to a pianist who now has to be numbered among the finest in the world today.
…It gives her playing an irresistible combination of passionate involvement and intellectual rigour - whatever she plays, you always sense that Uchida has thought through the reasons for everything she does with it, but always in the best interests of communicating what she feels is the emotional essence of the music. It's a rare, and very precious gift.
Financial Times, 5 April 2008
Andrew Clark
Few pianists are capable of giving a solo recital in London's Royal Festival Hall and filling it - not just with a decent enough crowd but also with a sound that resonates in the hall's lofty recesses. Mitsuko Uchida is one of them, and the fact that she did so this week with a programme that went beyond conventional boundaries shows how high her standing is. She is that rare animal, a performer of manifest intelligence and wideranging taste who makes choices on principle - and who inspires trust in those choices among a non-specialist public.
(Royal Festival Hall recital: Schubert, Bach/Kurtag, Schumann)
The Boston Globe, 18 January 2008
Jeremy Eichler
Whatever code unlocks the mysteries of Mozart, the pianist Mitsuko Uchida seems to carry it in her DNA. When she touches a work by this composer, it almost always turns to music – in the fullest and most poetic sense.
… This particular Mozart Concerto [K488] glows more gently than most, thanks in part to the streamlined orchestra that the composer chose to write for. From Uchida’s initial entrance in the first movement, her signature Mozart sound was in evidence: melodies floated with a velvety softness of touch but also complimented by a firm and articulate left hand, gestures made with a keen harmonic sensitivity. Thursday night, the second movement in particular boasted some beautifully weightless playing and plenty of delicate give-and-take with the orchestra. Davis made sure you could hear every note of the solo line but also that Uchida had a supportive partner at ever turn.
(Mozart Piano Concerto K488, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis)
The Guardian, 16 November 2007
Andrew Clements
‘…it is her account of the Hammerklavier that is so overwhelming, and perhaps the finest to appear on disc since Emil Gilels’ 25 years ago. …. She places the expressive weight firmly on the great slow movement, conceived in vast, hymn-like paragraphs and leaving the heroics to the theatre of the opening Allegro and the huge finale, so making her performance as much an intellectual triumph as a pianistic one.’
(Beethoven: Sonatas Op101 and 106, Philips)
The Independent, 10 November 2007
Michael Church
Album of the Week: ‘Uchida speaks with the authentic voice of imperial Vienna.’
(Beethoven: Sonatas Op101 and 106, Philips)
Financial Times, 10 November 2007
Andrew Clark
‘Explosive and reclusive, majestic and intimate, ecstatic and quietly ruminative – it’s tempting to say that all human life and emotion is encapsulated in Uchida’s latest Beethoven recording, so encompassing is her traversal of the music’s moods and meanings. …She embraces the humanism and universalism of Beethoven, his emotional gravity and Olympian intellect, and plays at the peak of her considerable powers. Unquestionably my disc of the year.’
(Beethoven: Sonatas Op101 and 106, Philips)
BBC Music Magazine, November 2007
Michael Tanner
‘This disc is of a calibre that I count myself lucky to encounter once in a decade.’
The Observer, 7 October 2007
Anthony Holden
‘In K595 the peerless Mitsuko Uchida confirmed her pre-eminence as a Mozart soloist, offering wit, sparkle and gravitas with that most perfectly judged of touches.’
(Sir Colin Davis, London Symphony Orchestra)
