“Clustered at the very top of the piano-playing profession are a handful of players everyone agrees are supreme. Mitsuko Uchida is one of them,” writes Ivan Hewett in Tuesday’s (1/10) Telegraph (U.K.). “Uchida has to be careful about her health, since persistent vertigo caused by an inner ear problem left her unable to play for months. ‘I had to abandon my Beethoven Diabelli recording,’ she says. ‘That’s now scheduled for 2020…. After a career of more than 40 years, Uchida is still at the top of her game, which she ascribes to her slow rise. ‘Nowadays young pianists are pushed, pushed, pushed,’ she says…. Uchida was a made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 2009 … The illness and death of close friends and of revered colleagues Pierre Boulez and Nikolaus Harnoncourt … ‘made me reflect on things. I have reached the age where I can step back. I don’t have to run around giving 120 concerts a year—50 is enough for me.’ … Her latest project is a partnership with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with which she recently played Mozart piano concertos in London as a curtain-raiser to her three-year residency at the Southbank Centre.”
Posted January 12, 2017
