Mitsuko Uchida / Berliner Philharmoniker / Sir Simon Rattle LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Klavierkonzerte 1-5

                                                      KLAVIERKONZERTE 1 - 5

Boulez / Tetzlaff / Uchida / Ensemble InterContemporain MOZART 13 BERG

As far as can be determined by perusing the international catalogs, this 2008 Decca disc contains post-modernist composer/conductor Pierre Boulez's first recording of a work by high classical composer/performer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Boulez's choice of repertoire is unusual to say the least: neither a symphony nor a piano concerto, but rather a serenade, to be specific, the Gran Partita for 13 wind instruments. One could understand a symphony, possibly the contrapuntal 41st, or a piano concerto, perhaps the driving 20th, but a serenade, a piece of light music designed for entertainment? Could anything seem further from Boulez's post-modernist aesthetic? 

The program makes more sense in context of the coupling: Berg's Chamber Concerto. Both works are by Viennese composers -- Berg was born and died there, Mozart moved there and died -- and both call for the unusual ensemble of 13 wind instruments. But the distance between the two pieces is still vast. To start with, the forms are entirely different: Mozart's work is full of solos drawn from within the ensemble, while Berg's is a true concerto with a pianist and violin soloists taking the lead. More fundamentally, Mozart's is an enormously delightful and occasionally affecting tonal work while Berg's is immensely challenging and only occasionally overtly appealing serial work. 

Inevitably, then, one is more curious about Boulez's Mozart than his Berg and more confident about his Berg than his Mozart, and, unsurprisingly, Boulez's approach is arguably more successful in the Berg than in the Mozart. Leading his superbly trained Ensemble InterContemporain, Boulez's Gran Partita is cool, clear, analytical, and, as often as not, a bit on the quick side. Thanks to Boulez's superlative ears and crisp technique, everything is absolutely audible and, thanks to the Paris-based chamber orchestra's first-class playing, everything is ideally executed. Listeners looking for elegance and warmth might want to look elsewhere, but listeners who value clarity and lucidity above all may find Boulez's Gran Partita reading rewarding. 

As expected, Boulez's Berg is much more successful, partially due to his excellent choices in soloists, pianist Mitsuko Uchida and violinist Christian Tetzlaff, and partially due to Boulez's unsurpassed understanding of Berg's musical language. As with his Mozart, everything is absolutely audible and ideally executed, but unlike his Mozart, Boulez and his players sound much more committed to the music and Berg's concerto comes off as much more touching than his Mozart Serenade. Beautifully recorded by Decca, this disc may please some of the people some of the time and displease the rest of the people the rest of the time, but it seems unlikely to please all of the people all of the time. (James Leonard)

Dorothea Röschmann / Mitsuko Uchida SCHUMANN Liederkreis Frauenliebe und Leben BERG Sieben frühe Lieder

For all their radical stylistic differences, Schumann and Berg were composers whose creative personas had much in common. In particular, both were steeped in literature, and both had a lifelong fascination with cryptograms and numerical symbolism of all kinds. But while Berg’s formative years were spent composing virtually nothing other than Lieder, Schumann turned seriously to song only after a decade spent writing almost exclusively music for solo piano. Not by chance, Schumann’s change of direction in 1840 coincided with his long- postponed marriage to Clara Wieck. In that one year alone, as though in rapturous greeting to his bride, he composed around 130 Lieder — a body of work that is sufficient in itself to place him as second only to Schubert in the pantheon of song composers. One of the cycles of that time, Frauenliebe und -leben, to poems by the French-born Adelbert von Chamisso, itself encapsulates the life of a married woman. “I have lived and loved”, she sings in the last of the eight songs, and the cycle traces her journey from first love, through betrothal, marriage and childbirth, to bereavement. Not only does the final number of the cycle end with an almost exact recollection of the piano part of the first song, but Schumann adopts a “closed” form in the majority of the intervening numbers by repeating the opening line (or lines) at the end. The exceptions are those songs whose narrative progression makes such a reversion unfeasible. In the fifth song, for instance, as the bride-to-be bids her sisters farewell, the melody of the opening bars is transformed into a miniature wedding march; and the accelerating pace of the cycle’s penultimate song culminates in a moment of reverie, after which the piano is left on its own to express the exultation of love in a new melody whose flowing quality enhances the dramatic effectiveness of the bleak closing song. That final song, as the loss of the woman’s husband causes a veil to descend over her future, leaves the music open- ended, and a short dissolve leads to the piano’s long reminiscence of the cycle’s opening number. The concluding moments present the piano part exactly as it was in the second verse of the original song. At first, that part had doubled the vocal line; but at the point where the two had diverged, and the piano had assumed a purely accompanimental role, the listener now becomes acutely aware of the missing voice. It is an ending of infinite tenderness, and an overwhelming expression of loss. . .

We'll take for granted the lovely, limpid, not-too-close sound provided by Decca. The singing is exquisite; Röschmann has a silvery, soaring soprano in the Lucia Popp/Margaret Price category, light, bright, pure and shimmering with easy top notes and real intensity without a hint of wobble or scratch. Her diction is ideal and she sings with real passion. Perhaps the most beautiful thing here is her rendering of "Mondnacht", where the delicacy of Uchida's pianism matches Röschmann's poise. Hear, too, the skill with which Röschmann manages the tricky intervals and sustains perfect intonation in "Auf einer Burg" . . . [Uchida's] style suits perfectly both the singer's vocal layout and the mood of the songs, especially the tenderness of "Frauenliebe und Leben", which is given an account to match the best predecessors . . . The haunting Berg songs are creamily sung and make an apt interlude between the two Schumann cycles . . . I cannot imagine any aficionado being disappointed by such musically flawless singing and playing. (Ralph Moore, MusicWeb International / 01. November 2015)

Mitsuko Uchida SCHUMANN G Minor Sonata - Waldszenen - Gesänge der Frühe

Japanese-British pianist Mitsuko Uchida continues to impress with recordings that are not so much intellectual as simply well thought out, making a challenging yet extremely satisfying overall impression. Consider the three works by Robert Schumann recorded here. Only the Waldszenen, Op. 82 (Forest Scenes), are well known. The Piano Sonata No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22, is an early but not immature work, composed in 1830 and supplied with a new finale in 1838 at the suggestion of Clara Schumann, who pointed out that while she could play the original version, few others would be able to. There is already plenty to chew on here, for Schumann incorporates motivic links to the first movement in the new finale. Clara was lukewarm about the work (calling it "not too incomprehensible"), but Schumann himself thought highly of it. The genesis of the work is fascinating; it began with a song Schumann composed in his student days, and Schumann incorporated it into an inner voice of the slow movement. Rather like Beethoven's theater music, it does have the feel of an innovative composer's ideas being forced into an older mold. But Uchida, with her precise yet explosive style, is the perfect interpreter of the work, which seems to spill over the boundaries of sonata form with quasi-improvisatory ideas. Her performance connects the work to the rest of the output of the young Schumann in an ideal way. Also interesting are the Gesänge der Frühe, Op. 133 (Dawn Songs), one of the last things Schumann finished before going insane: they are strangely serene little miniatures. The Waldszenen themselves are full of fresh, even daring interpretations. Decca's engineering staff outdoes itself with its capture of an ideal sound environment for the work: not the usual concert hall or studio but the well-known audiophile venue the Reitstadel in the German city of Neumarkt. An essential Schumann release. (James Manheim)

Mitsuko Uchida / Kurt Sanderling BEETHOVEN The 5 Piano Concertos

When does the incandescent become ephemeral? When does the evanescent become artificial? When do the expertly crafted, the gracefully sculpted, and the radiantly beautiful become simply a matter of style and taste? It is impossible to say for certain. For some listeners, Mitsuko Uchida's recordings of Beethoven's piano concertos with Kurt Sanderling conducting either the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra or the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks will be the epitome of aesthetic pleasure. For others, her performances will be instantly forgettable. Uchida certainly has the clear tone, the strong technique, and the necessary heroic-poetic sensibility to play Beethoven's concertos, and Sanderling surely has the depth, the soul, and the experience to conduct Beethoven's concertos, but they don't seem to touch either each other or the music, much less the eternal in Beethoven's music. The witty humor of the First, the easy elegance of the Second, the powerful drama of the Third, the serene lyricism of the Fourth, and the Apollonian majesty of the Fifth seem missing from their performances together, and, although they are pleasant enough while they're playing, when they're over, they're gone and forgotten. Philips' '90s piano sound is as clear, lucid, and warm as its '60s and '70s piano sound, that is to say, as good as the best ever made. (James Leonard)