BEETHOVEN

 

Piano Sonata Op. 109 In E Major

1. I Vivace, Ma Non Troppo

2. Ii Prestissimo

3. Iii Andante Molto Cantabile Ed Espressivo

 

Piano Sonata Op. 110 In A Flat Major

4. I Moderato Cantabile Molto Espressivo

5. Ii Allegro Molto

6. Iii Adagio, Ma Non Troppo

7. Iv. Fuga: Allegro Ma Non Troppo

 

Piano Sonata Op. 111 In C Minor

8. I Maestoso

9. Ii Adagio Molto Semplice E Cantabile

 

Mitsuko Uchida

 

'This was Beethoven pushed to the edge of a precipice, and the kind of virtuosity steeped in risk taking rather than sheer display.' - New York Times (concert review)

 

'But Op 111 was the high point, beginning with the attack and ferocious propulsion she brought in her tireless playing of the first movement. She went on to really swing the 'boogie-woogie' variation, where Beethoven seems to invent jazz, and the celestial trills were heartstopping: but the despair and sublimity of both this music and Uchida's performance are really beyond words.' - The Times (concert review)

 

This is Mitsuko Uchida's eagerly awaited first recording of Beethoven piano sonatas.

 

Throughout her distinguished international career Mitsuko Uchida has focussed on in-depth explorations of major composers. Her definitive recordings of the piano concerti and sonatas of Mozart were followed by an 8 CD cycle of the solo piano music of Schubert.

 

Now Mitsuko Uchida is increasingly fascinated by the music of Beethoven and feels that the time is right to record these cornerstones of the piano repertory - the last three sonatas; Op.109, Op.110 & Op.111.

 

Mitsuko Uchida has said that it wasn't until she played all three together in concert that she realised that they can be considered as one giant musical structure and it is this approach she brings to these recordings made in the concert hall at Snape, Suffolk on the Eastern coast of England.

 

Even though Beethoven clearly did not write his last three sonatas — as his biographer, Anton Schindler, claimed — “at one stretch” in 1821, he may well have conceived them as a cycle, and many pianists have treated them as such, in concert and on disc. In her illuminating booklet notes, Mitsuko Uchida pinpoints the thematic and motivic links between Beethoven’s three utterly different masterpieces, which show the composer still experimenting radically with the sonata form. The shifts of mood and tone in late Beethoven are quirky — the two central movements of Op 110 plunge from the puckish comedy of an allegro molto to the emotional world of an arioso dolente (song of lament) — but Uchida is spellbinding in her ability to pull together the apparently disparate threads. Her contrapuntal rigour in the fast variations of Op 109 and the fugue of Op 110 is balanced by profound insights into the expressive heart of the composer’s style. This is magical piano-playing: we are lucky to live in an age when Uchida is the medium through which Beethoven’s genius still speaks to us so eloquently.

Times, Five stars

 

Decca 4756935