Schubert - 8 Impromptus [Uchida]
I went out for an early morning walk today, through the park, and i took this disc with me, and played it on random, i like doing this, it's good to mix up the pieces, how boring is it to get them in the same order every time?, Uchida sounds a lot like Brendel on this listening, they're accomplished accounts, these are my second favourite accounts after Brendel's digital version, and it was riveting listening to these pieces, especially with breathing in the cool morning air, Schubert is a genius in creating these masterpieces, here's a previous experience in my Blog [18th April 2011].
Mitsuko Uchida is Japanese, she is now 65, she recorded a survey of Schubert discs in the nineties, and this was recorded in 1996, the front cover [by Walter Schels] is a side view of her head, on a white background, i like the concept.
The three Impromptus that went above and beyond the others were 1 & 4-5, especially the first one of the second set D935/1, it's actually my favourite, and i enjoyed it so much here, it was enlightening watching Brendel play this piece on the YouTube link below, and to see where the hands go, the sound for Uchida is fantastic, nice crisp clear ring to the piano, yet warmth too, Philips always seem to be good here, Uchida is certainly impassioned in her playing, i rate Pianist's into two camps, Legato-ists and Staccato-ists, she's very much almost bang in the middle, i certainly lean towards loving the legato players, so the opening notes are very well done [0:00-0:31], nice volume, nice bit of anger there, it introduces the piece perfectly, plus i think she gets the left and right hand volume nicely balanced, the bass lines are not merely accompaniment, and should be just as involved as the melody lines, i like the way she builds up the following music to a frenzied intensity [1:06-1:24], the music then falls into a lovely serenade almost [1:41+], easy and gentle at first, but then increasingly there's these high plinking treble notes [2:10 & 2:25], and then comes along the middle section [2:43-5:50], where the right hand plays middle of the keyboard accompaniment, and the left hand plays a sort of duet with itself, where the bass repeats / echoes the treble notes, the left hand crossing over the right each time to play the treble, i notice it so clearly on the video below, it seems to go on for ages, but it's so mesmerising, the opening comes back for the whole thing to start again [6:00+], and it's so good to hear the 'serenade' music again [7:40-8:39], the 'dialogue' music comes back [8:40-10:18], but this time it's only half as long, i love the whole structure / architecture of the piece, it's made up of individual jigsaw pieces, but they're so effortlessly weaved together by Schubert, it sounds like one organism!.
Here's Brendel playing this Impromptu on YouTube.
Mitsuko Uchida is Japanese, she is now 65, she recorded a survey of Schubert discs in the nineties, and this was recorded in 1996, the front cover [by Walter Schels] is a side view of her head, on a white background, i like the concept.
The three Impromptus that went above and beyond the others were 1 & 4-5, especially the first one of the second set D935/1, it's actually my favourite, and i enjoyed it so much here, it was enlightening watching Brendel play this piece on the YouTube link below, and to see where the hands go, the sound for Uchida is fantastic, nice crisp clear ring to the piano, yet warmth too, Philips always seem to be good here, Uchida is certainly impassioned in her playing, i rate Pianist's into two camps, Legato-ists and Staccato-ists, she's very much almost bang in the middle, i certainly lean towards loving the legato players, so the opening notes are very well done [0:00-0:31], nice volume, nice bit of anger there, it introduces the piece perfectly, plus i think she gets the left and right hand volume nicely balanced, the bass lines are not merely accompaniment, and should be just as involved as the melody lines, i like the way she builds up the following music to a frenzied intensity [1:06-1:24], the music then falls into a lovely serenade almost [1:41+], easy and gentle at first, but then increasingly there's these high plinking treble notes [2:10 & 2:25], and then comes along the middle section [2:43-5:50], where the right hand plays middle of the keyboard accompaniment, and the left hand plays a sort of duet with itself, where the bass repeats / echoes the treble notes, the left hand crossing over the right each time to play the treble, i notice it so clearly on the video below, it seems to go on for ages, but it's so mesmerising, the opening comes back for the whole thing to start again [6:00+], and it's so good to hear the 'serenade' music again [7:40-8:39], the 'dialogue' music comes back [8:40-10:18], but this time it's only half as long, i love the whole structure / architecture of the piece, it's made up of individual jigsaw pieces, but they're so effortlessly weaved together by Schubert, it sounds like one organism!.
Here's Brendel playing this Impromptu on YouTube.
