Octo_Russ

Schubert - Piano Sonata 21 [Uchida] 

This was an enlightening experience listening to this disc again, i played it earlier this year [2nd February 2012], each Pianist is obviously different, with different ideas, the 'ideal' Pianist makes you forget about the interpretation and just concentrate on the beautiful music, this time listening to this disc, i find that Uchida doesn't do that, there's moments where i think 'Schubert wouldn't approve of that!', she can be clumsy in certain areas, too slow here maybe, too fast somewhere else, i'm not entirely convinced by her speeds, in other places she's too much staccato / jagged, where a smoother line would have benefited, Schubert's bubbly and lyrical, and even though there's dance rhythms in there, there's always this legato / linking line, Uchida can stagger at times, and other times she blurs things, where to pronounce would have been much better, don't get me wrong, there's certainly more things she does right than wrong, but as i get to know a certain work really well, i can be more critical when things go wrong, as i notice them more, and certainly on this listening my critical ear was more sharpened than ever before, this just goes to show how much i've progressed in truly listening to things, i'm still a fan of Uchida though, also i must say the recording doesn't help, a warm bass recording, that can blunt things somewhat, which adds to Uchida's idiosyncrasies, however this is still one of my favourite interpretations of this work.

Mitsuko Uchida is originally from Japan, but now she's living in England, she's now 63, and she made this recording in 1997, the front cover photo is by Walter Schels, a portrait with Uchida with her eyes closed, dark background and clothing makes the face stand out, and white lettering, the whole thing's devoid of colour, but i still believe it works well, the back inlay works even better, as the lettering works very well indeed, very nicely laid out.

As almost always, it's that first movement which gets me every time, Schubert's Piano Sonata 21 is my favourite Sonata amongst all Composers, and the first movement is head and shoulders above the other three, .

Here's Alfred Brendel playing the first movement on YouTube.