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© Decca Justin Pumfrey

Mitsuko Uchida

Beethoven's last three sonatas
Great Pianists
Fri 12 Jan ’24 20:15 uur


Programme:
Beethoven - Sonata opus 109, 110 & 111

Fri 12 Jan ’24
20:15 uur

The Japanese-British pianist Mitsuko Uchida is a regular guest at Muziekgebouw Eindhoven, this time bringing an all-Beethoven programme. The Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote about her: "Call it a masterstroke. Just when she seemed to become predictable, the goddess of purity, the pianist shows an entirely different character. Playing Mozart again, she treated listeners to a jovial, more robust side of her art.". A pianist, then, who never ceases to surprise, but always at her ultimate level.

Beethoven's last three piano sonatas are of a special category. After his immense Hammerklavier Sonata Beethoven seems to turn inward. They are three compact works in which Beethoven plays with traditional forms and lets his imagination run wild. This sometimes leads to a lyricism that could almost be called romantic. Or to moments of contemplative silence. The last sonata unites two worlds: a titanic, tragic, hyper-energetic one as we have come to expect from the younger Beethoven. And, in the connecting Arietta, an endless singing and fading away. Beethoven's publisher asked anxiously if there was going to be a fast finale to follow, but this Arietta begs to be left alone. Music for the fully matured artist that is Mitsuko Uchida.

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Grote Pianisten