Mitsuko Uchida Appears as Guest Artist at the Easter Festival

You don’t have to be a native of Vienna to perform the works of Viennese classicism with an authentic touch, as Mitsuko Uchida proves. Born in Japan and a resident of London, she will partner with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Mariss Jansons on 17 April to play Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. And she will be in good company.

In fact, none of the great triumvirate of composers who evolved the style of Viennese classicism was even genuinely Viennese. Joseph Haydn first saw the light of day in Burgenland to the east, and Wolfgang Amadé Mozart was born in Salzburg (which was not yet part of the Austrian Empire during the composer’s lifetime). The Viennese snobbishly looked down on Ludwig van Beethoven because of his “Rhineland” dialect, and his ancestors were actually Flemish. Mitsuko Uchida, who came to Vienna at the age of 12 when her father was appointed ambassador there, shares the immigrant’s “outside perspective” with these three great composers. “Music acquired a new meaning for me there,” she recalls, referring to her opportunity to study in Vienna as “the great fortune of my life.” Uchida explains that her musical language is German, but with a Viennese accent, as she puts it: “I especially associate Vienna with the triple rhythm of the ländler and the waltz, with this slightly off-kilter pulse. In Schubert’s Viennese waltzes, the second beat comes too early and the third beat too late. I’ve internalized all of this too, this is my Viennese blood.”

And yet her path led still further to the Thames, and she has made her home in London for nearly three decades. “I felt that in Vienna people know so much about music making that it wouldn’t be easy to get ahead here. So I thought I needed to go to a place without too much tradition. The English have never produced such absolutely great composers, and they’ve never tried to claim ownership of them either. So in London you find a more open environment.”

Even though Mitsuko Uchida is acclaimed as a soloist around the world, she has a true passion for chamber music. So it was with great pleasure that she agreed to an invitation from musicians of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra to join them on 16 April to perform Beethoven’s Quintet for Piano and Winds, Op. 16. “There are people who are born soloists,” she remarks. “Such people are always important. It’s another approach to concert performance. But there came a time when I discovered that I’m a partner – or, even better, a collaborator. Whenever I play a piano concerto, I’m also continually listening.” And it’s a characteristic that has certainly enhanced her performances!