Soul music a lifelong celebration

[KiwiCoromandel]

THE great composers gave expression to some of their most profound thoughts when contemplating death.

"When you have somebody who is dying around you," says Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida in a matter-of-fact way, "there are four people that you can always offer. Schubert when the person needs consolation; Beethoven when the person needs optimism and hope; Mozart, when the person needs somebody to love; and Bach when you need God. Those are the fundamental differences between those four greatest composers."

Uchida, one suspects, is gradually making her rounds of these four giants of the keyboard repertoire. She has a special affinity for Schubert and made her name with Mozart in the early 1980s, when she gave recitals of the complete piano sonatas and concertos.

Her most recent recording is of the last three sonatas of Beethoven, recorded last year at Snape Maltings in England; a second volume will be recorded there next April. And admirers of her sensitive pianism will be delighted when she says Bach "may pop up in due course".

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...1-16947,00.html

image:World stage: Japanese-born Mitsuko Uchida studied in Vienna and lives in London