Arts & Events

On Sunday afternoon, March 24, Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida, currently Artist in Residence at Cal Performances, performed two Mozart Piano Concertos at Zellerbach Hall. The concertos were No. 17 in G Major, K. 453, and No. 22 in E flat Major, K. 482. Mitsuko Uchida conducted the Mahler Chamber Orchestra from the piano. 

Over the years Mitsuko Uchida has established herself as perhaps the foremost interpreter of Mozart’s Piano Concertos. She has twice recorded the complete Mozart Piano Concertos, first in 1989 with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jeffrey Tate, and a second time 

in 2011-14 with the Cleveland Orchestra and Uchida conducting from the piano. Over time, Mitsuko Uchida has refined and expanded her pianistic interpretations of Mozart’s concertos. Listening to her early recordings of Mozart, I found her to be a sensitive interpreter, though perhaps overemphasising Mozart’s delicacy at the expense of his dramatic expressivity. In her later recordings of the Mozart Piano Concertos, Uchida pays more attention to dynamics, thus opening the way to greater dramatic expressivity. Likewise, on the two recent occasions when I’ve heard Mitsuko Uchida live here in Berkeley, she has definitely offered a more strenuous Mozart than in her early recordings. This ability to develop her interpretations over time is most welcome, and I’m sure Mitsuko Uchida will continue to delve ever deeper into Mozart’s wonderful Piano Concertos and Sonatas. 

Mozart wrote his Piano Concerto No. 17 in 1784 for his talented pupil Barbara “Babette” Plower, and this work premiered at a soirée in the Plower family home. Scored for a chamber ensemble 

including one flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, and strings plus piano, this G Major Piano Concerto abounds in contrasts of darkness and light, with especial prominence given to the woodwinds, who provide the shadows in the opening movement. The second movement is an emotional and melancholy Andante, in which a five-measure theme is repeated five times in various instruments, each time ending abruptly on the dominant, thus posing a question, the answer to which is finally provided by the piano. The third and final movement offers a chirpy birdcall that reportedly was sung by a pet starling that Mozart bought when he heard it sing his music. Pianist Mitsuko Uchida excelled in this scintillating concerto. 

Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat Major, K. 482, which premiered in late December 1785, is one of the most widely popular of Mozart’s concertos. It opens with a dramatic flourish from trumpets and drums, which will be repeated many times in between ascending and descending runs by the piano. Conducting from the piano, Mitsuko Uchida emphasised the dynamic alternations of these interspersed passages from orchestra and solo piano. Here too Uchida honors both the dramatic expressivity and the delicacy of Mozart’s music. 

The second movement is a magnificent Andante, offering a plaintive meditation on the sorrows of life and death. Interestingly, as Janet E. Bedell indicates in program notes for this performance, at about the time of Mozart’s writing of this concerto, he wrote to his father that he had come to accept the prospect of death, even perhaps an early death, with acceptance and lack of fear. These very qualities are apparent in abundance throughout this marvellous slow movement, which offers plaintive passages for clarinets and horns and from a flute and bassoons. Mitsuko Uchida also performs delicate trills throughout this melancholy yet affirmative movement. 

The third and final movement opens with the solo piano performing a lively melody which is quickly taken up by the full orchestra. This tuneful rondo melody dominates the entire movement, although a slower-tempo minuet interlude occurs midway in this movement. When the opening rondo melody returns, this time in the bassoons and clarinets, the stage is set for a rousing and surprising closing statement in the piano accompanied by pizzicato in the strings. Mitsuko Uchida’s performance both as pianist and conductor was magisterial, and she and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra received a tumultuous standing ovation from the appreciative audience. 

In addition to the two Mozart Piano Concertos, this program offered a work by contemporary German composer Jörg Widmann, his Choral Quartet, Version for flute, oboe, bassoon, celesta and string orchestra. Inspired by Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Christ, Widmann’s work features frequent pizzicato outbursts from the violas as dramatic punctuation. It proceeds in fits and starts with momentary silences as a formative element. This Widmann work was led by José Maria Blumenschein, concertmaster of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.