Great Pianists - Mitsuko Uchida

Diabelli Variations

In the spring of 2022, Mitsuko Uchida released a CD with Beethoven's 'Diabelli Variations', a top work from the piano repertoire. The recording was nominated for a Grammy Award. 16 years earlier, the pianist had already set the bar high with her registration of Beethoven's 3 last sonatas. As the daughter of the Japanese ambassador to Austria, Mitsuko Uchida studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna. In her playing she feels completely at home with the masters of the First Viennese School, and this is especially true of Beethoven's piano sonatas.

Beethoven's last 3 piano sonatas

Beethoven wrote his piano sonatas opus 109, 110 and 111 between 1820 and 1822. They were not Beethoven's 'dernier cri' in the field of music, in his last years he only wrote for string quartet. Yet these sonatas fully belong to Beethoven's final creative period. From the sketches you can see that the composer worked on the 3 sonatas at the same time, he saw the pieces as a triptych. Performing these major works one after the other, without a break, takes into account Beethoven's intention.