United States Beethoven: Mitsuko Uchida (piano), Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, Cleveland, 26.2.2023. (MSJ)
Beethoven – Piano Sonata No.30 in E main, Op.109; Piano Sonata No.31 in A-flat main, Op.110; Piano Sonata No.32 in C minor, Op.111
There’s little doubt that Mitsuko Uchida is without doubt one of the world’s most interesting pianists. Anything she performs is value listening to, however I did discover myself questioning this system for this recital. And I’ve to surprise, is there some music that basically isn’t ideally suited for public efficiency? Perhaps, but when it opens a door to only one individual, it could be value it.
The questions come up due to the final three piano sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven performed right here. Beethoven was a pianist, so the works are a direct line to the composer’s means of interacting with the world. In his youth, brilliance was to the entrance in his sonatas, increasing into the heroic struggles of his center interval works. That course of culminated within the ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata which, in its epic scale, appears designed to be the sonata-to-end-all-sonatas. For his last three, Beethoven turned inward, shifting the main focus in the direction of an unearthly transcendence. That unearthliness makes them uneasy programming for a decidedly earthly live performance setting.
Another thought is that they don’t essentially make a superb trilogy. Beethoven gave them separate opus numbers, suggesting that he didn’t take into account them a trilogy, but the thought of specializing in them as a bunch due to the brand new course in Beethoven’s music that they signify has advantage. The works have an incredible deal in widespread, however contemplating that they’ve much less contrasting materials than the composer’s younger works signifies that placing them on one program will increase the sense of introspection.
Uchida has programmed intimate music in recital right here earlier than and, in 2019, she did an excellent program of Schubert piano sonatas. I recall that live performance as having a extra targeted viewers than this one, although that notion was, at the very least partly, as a result of pair of aged girls behind me having a superb gossip at nearly each second the music wasn’t enjoying (and some moments when it was), and the failing listening to help battery someplace off to my proper. It was a full-capacity crowd throughout a winter that has extended chilly and flu season with roller-coaster temperatures in northeast Ohio, that means that a lot respiratory misery was in proof. I needed to surprise, why had been all these individuals right here?
None of this confirmed any signal of bothering Uchida, who shortly went into her personal world because the quietly playful knitting of pairs of notes started the Sonata in E main. Approaching the center of her seventh decade, Uchida’s method stays deft and supple. The look of the primary interruption of a gradual tempo outlined her strategy: average, with out excessive tempos in both course, with an emphasis on fluency and poise. It is smart that these sonatas would flourish with Uchida, contemplating that she is most well-known for Mozart and Schubert versus middle-period Beethoven. The uncommon eruptive moments right here did show, although, that she will play with drive when vital.
Uchida’s poise got here to the fore within the finale of the E main, with the just about operatic melody sung radiantly. She had requested for no applause between the primary two sonatas (which made up the primary half of the live performance), however when she closed the sonata with a really last gesture, it provoked applause anyway. She ought to keep in mind that in her focal place, she would have the ability to regulate applause by easily transferring into the start of the following piece with out breaking away from the keyboard in a last gesture.
The Sonata in A-flat main had the identical fluency and poise. Uchida performed the unhappy gradual motion with elegant reserve, permitting for a smoother transition into the extra optimistic fugues that finally drive the sonata to a triumphant shut. Particularly breathtaking had been the overlapping layers within the last fugue, with the topic transferring at totally different speeds concurrently, a second the place Beethoven appears to be setting up a brand new world.
After intermission got here the Sonata in C minor, one of many best keyboard works ever written. Uchida made it clear that her view of the primary motion was within the context of the composer’s late interval. She didn’t play it as a throwback to Beethoven’s heaven-storming center interval however slightly as a recollection of it. Her emphasis was on the growing moments of quiet and lyricism that present Beethoven’s focus transferring inward. In the ultimate motion, she adopted the composer’s trajectory in its ever-rising, ever-expanding imaginative and prescient. What is spectacular is how a lot Uchida may deliver me alongside for that journey regardless of coughing, gossips and rogue listening to aids. It’s music of uncanny energy, and Uchida is a grasp of the instrument.
Why had been all of these individuals there? Surely, many got here as a result of Mitsuko Uchida is a dwelling legend of classical music, and lots of younger individuals had been there to look as much as somebody who’s a robust position mannequin. It’s probably that others had been there as a result of Beethoven’s identify nonetheless carries a robust, mystical cachet, regardless of the accelerating collapse of respect for the humanities in America’s floundering society. And some had been there, as at all times, simply to be seen. But if any of these in attendance take inspiration from Uchida’s high-quality performances to discover these works additional and deeper within the uninterrupted solitude of a listening session with headphones or earbuds, then the live performance may have served an incredible function: there are different worlds inside our world, and music can open these doorways.
Mark Sebastian Jordan