Into orbit with a flick and a whirl

The concert began and ended in familiar Uchida territory, opening with Schubert and concluding, in fiery and risk-taking form, with Schumann’s Etudes symphoniques Op 13 in his more off-the-wall original 1837 version. Schubert’s C minor Sonata D958 is the first of the three great final sonatas, written weeks before his death in 1828. This darkly majestic work flickers urgently from minor to major, from dotted-rhythm agitation to sunlit, hymn-like serenity. Uchida seemed unsettled at first, not helped by a spectacularly rude fortissimo cougher who needed throttling. But in the last two movements she took off, achieving her hallmark mix of steely, muscular intensity and refined elegance.

Then for the remainder of the first half, Uchida whirled off into another orbit, engaging in the exquisite glass bead games of the Hungarian composer György Kurtág (b1926). She chose six pieces from his Jatekok — ongoing volumes of tiny, haiku-like piano studies — and interspersed them with Bach, one of his chief musical inspirations. Each Kurtág miniature compresses fierce emotion into a few notes, now playful, now brusque or skittish or wistful. This music, so pure and concentrated, might have suited a smaller space better, but they were a joy to hear.

Uchida has resisted playing much Bach in public but her intimate account of the Contrapunctus 1 from the Art of Fugue, as whispered as if her concert grand had been transformed into a pair of virginals, made you hope for more, soon.

Broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Wednesday 9 April. Next in series, Imogen Cooper, 15 April.

Mitsuko Uchida
Festival Hall