I have been listening to Mitsuko Uchida for 40 years, perhaps longer…
As a young girl, her family came to Vienna when her father was the Japanese Ambassador to Austria, and Ms. Uchida studied music there for many years. Is there a better place to study than the country where Mozart was born?
She’s now 72 and still bringing me huge pleasure with her performances.
Today I heard her play Mozart’s Concerto KV 450 and it was a delight.
Mozart composed this concerto in 1784. The work is orchestrated for solo piano, flute (third movement only), two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, and strings. The concerto is in three movements:
Allegro
Andante in E-flat major
Allegro
The first movement is in typical sonata-allegro form. It is testimony to Mozart’s greatness that although this movement is extremely difficult from a technical point of view, it never sounds like a ‘showpiece’ meant to display the performer’s skills.
Some of the demands made on the pianist include fast ascending-descending arpeggios, hand-crossing and wide jumps and towards the end a double-handed tremolo where the soloist ‘battles against’ the orchestra.
Here is Ms. Uchida’s interpretation; she makes it sound so simple and totally delightful!
