Kirin Uchida Heaven (2021)

Mitsuko Uchida is one of the finest interpreters of Mozart's piano music. She brings to this music a lightness and delicacy that fits it perfectly. This 5 CD set, which groups recordings made in the 1980s, includes all of Mozart's piano sonatas and one fantasia. This is not all of Mozart's piano music; one may regret that Phillips did not decide to go a bit further and include the rest of his piano music in this set.

Debussy's Etudes are really the only set that deserves to be put beside Chopin's. What makes them so special? Like his, they are truly “practice pieces,” systematically exploring various aspects of keyboard technique. But at the same time, they are poetic works of art, full of fantasy, charm, and musical invention. Uchida's recording is almost universally regarded as the finest version of these works to appear in modern times. Her playing combines effortless virtuosity with pianistic precision, keeping the music's artistic and pedagogical tendencies in a state of exquisite tension. This disc also established Uchida's claim to be recognized as one of the most interesting and talented pianists now active. You need to hear it.

Dame Mitsuko Uchida, universally acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost Schumann interpreters, follows her last album of the composer’s music (Davidsbündlertänze and Fantasie in C) with another sublime Schumann programme. Uchida’s latest Decca recording brings together the romantic fire and intensity of the Piano Sonata No. 2 in G minor Op. 22 with two remarkable works from Schumann’s final years, Waldszenen and the Gesänge der Frühe.

Her sister was murdered, and Kirin hungers for revenge. Using the power of her "blood magic," the young necromancer creates grotesque and inhumanly strong creatures by calling men's souls back into their dead bodies. These "sweetlings," as she calls them, are utterly devoted to her, and Kirin cherishes them as if they were her own children. But while fighting a bloody war against a relentless enemy, she meets Lia Cho, a beautiful and gentle woman who can call the power of storms… and soon, Kirin learns that there is more to life than pain and vengeance.

The virtues of Uchida's playing are the ones classically associated with Mozart: grace, fluidity, restraint, and a certain playful quality. Those are all on display in these performances of Mozart concertos from the 1770s, early in the composer's career. Uchida's style is more concerned with small details than with large spaces, and this puts her somewhat out of the mainstream in a work like the Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat major, K. 271 – many performances recorded since the 1992 date of Uchida's version have emphasized the way a vast architecture suddenly appeared in the mind of the young composer. Still, there are many lovely details, often connected to Uchida's way of bringing out the various wrinkles in the concerto's left-hand parts.

Debussy's Études are really the only set that deserves to be put beside Chopin's. What makes them so special? Like his, they are truly "practice pieces," systematically exploring various aspects of keyboard technique. But at the same time, they are poetic works of art, full of fantasy, charm, and musical invention. Uchida's recording is almost universally regarded as the finest version of these works to appear in modern times. Her playing combines effortless virtuosity with pianistic precision, keeping the music's artistic and pedagogical tendencies in a state of exquisite tension. This disc also established Uchida's claim to be recognized as one of the most interesting and talented pianists now active. You need to hear it.