Uchida Plays [More than] Nice w/ Mozart @ Severance Hall 4/5/12
Reviewed by Laura Kennelly
Even though pianist Mitsuko Uchida and the Cleveland Orchestra have enjoyed a five-year fling with Mozart (from 2002 to 2007 she performed all of his piano concertos while she was Artist-in-Residence), the freshness she brings to her performances continues to be impressive (and delightful). The bright tempos favored by the eighteenth-century genius suit her, as was obvious to anyone listening or watching her hands fly over the keyboard Thursday evening. See just how fast she can play here in this video clip of her playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9, one of the pieces we heard. [The clip features Jeffrey Tate conducting the Mozarteum Orchestra.]
Of course, it’s not just that she’s quick, it’s that she combines her speed with a sensitivity that suggests the composer himself might have sounded like that if he’d had as fine an instrument as the orchestra’s brand-new Hamburg Steinway. Uchida, who selected it for the Orchestra, has said there is no piano more beautiful sounding in the United States today (according to Gary Hanson in the program notes).
As is her wont, Uchida did double-duty, serving as both soloist and conductor for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 and also his Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467. With her gossamer gown flying around uplifted arms, she reminded me of Helen Mirren as the enchantress Prospera in the Julie Taymor version of The Tempest.
We also heard Mozart’s Serenade No. 11 in E-flat major, K. 375, a work that features a wind instrument octet. The ensemble passed musical phrases back and forth, communicating with nods, gestures, and the occasional facial expression–the charming result reminding us that good collaborators create good music.
The concert was one of several being recorded for a new Decca recording–not too surprising since the Uchida/Mozart/Cleveland Orchestra pairing won a 2011 Grammy Award for a previous Decca release. Perhaps it was the pressure of trying not to make noise, but between movements half the audience coughed so much it sounded as if hospital visits were in order.
Overall: another fine concert by one of the finest pianists (and orchestras) around today.
More piano fireworks are planned for Thu 4/26; Fri 4/27; and Sat 4/28, at 8 p.m. when the regular conductor/music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, Franz Welser-Möst, conducts the orchestra in concerts featuring Chinese sensation Lang Lang as soloist in Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 2, at Severance Hall. The program also features Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 (“Romantic”).
For more information or tickets call 800-686-1141 or go to http://ClevelandOrchestra.com.
Laura Kennelly is a freelance arts journalist, a member of the Music Critics Association of North America, and an associate editor of BACH, a scholarly journal devoted to J. S. Bach and his circle.Listening to and learning more about music has been a life-long passion. She knows there’s no better place to do that than the Cleveland area.