“Music is the essence of humanlife and it becomes more beautifu all the time” Mitsuko Uchida
Her recording of Beethoven’s last 3 sonata was released on 2006
https://play.qobuz.com/album/0002894756935
“So—if we want to improvise in the best, truest manner in public—we should give ourselves over freely to what comes to mind.” Beethoven
By the time Beethoven wrote the last of his 32 piano sonatas in the early 1820s, he was an aging warrior battered by illness and emotional trauma. Finding social intercourse arduous, Beethoven turned increasingly inward in the works of his late period; his last three piano sonatas—opp. 109, 110, and 111—are characterized by intense soul searching.
All article from Program Notes
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2023/02/24/Mitsuko-Uchida-Piano-0800PM
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109
A battle-scarred warrior whose indomitable spirit shines through in the incandescent slow movement of the E-Major Sonata.
Moderato cantabile molto espressivo
Allegro molto
Adagio ma non troppo – Allegro ma non troppo
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110
One often has the sense that the composer is feeling his way from one idea to the next, the notes forming themselves soundlessly under his fingers, detached from their auditory moorings.
There is no overlooking the inwardness of his extraordinary late works, with their radical discontinuities, far-flung tonal relationships, and bold reconfigurations of musical time and space.
Moderato cantabile molto espressivo
Allegro molto
Adagio ma non troppo – Allegro ma non troppo
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111
The music teacher in Thomas Mann’s novel Doctor Faustus describes the closing passage as “the most moving, consolatory, pathetically reconciling thing in the world. It is like having one’s hair or cheek stroked, lovingly, understandingly, like a deep and silent farewell look.”
In his last sonata, Beethoven painted on a more monumental scale than in its two predecessors. Yet in its way, Op. 111 is also a marvel of compression. Its two-movement format was sufficiently unorthodox that the son of Beethoven’s publisher wrote to inquire if the copyist had inadvertently overlooked the finale.
Maestoso – Allegro con brio ed appassionato
Arietta: Adagio molto semplice e cantabile
Listening
Artur Schnabel
https://open.qobuz.com/album/g7qreg18yi7uc
You don’t listen for machinelike piano technique when Mitsuko Uchida plays, nor will you find a musical personality that blazes wide, new paths.
内田光子が演奏するとき、機械のようなピアノのテクニックに耳を傾けたり、広く新しい道を切り開く音楽的個性を見つけたりすることはありません。
And yet, surprises pop up in the pianist’s interpretations — revelations that change your musty old notion of how a certain phase should go. There’s considerable charisma in both her playing and her stage presence.
それでも、ピアニストの解釈には驚きが現れます。特定のフェーズがどのように進むべきかという、かび臭い古い概念を変える啓示です。 彼女の演奏とステージでの存在感にはかなりのカリスマ性があります。