Event is Live
Carnegie Hall Presents

Mitsuko Uchida, Piano

Friday, February 24, 2023 8 PM Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Mitsuko Uchida by Justin Pumfrey Decca
Mitsuko Uchida, one of the great pianists of our time and a 2022–2023 Perspectives artist, plays Beethoven’s final three sonatas. Uchida’s handling of this repertoire is exemplary, and when she last performed this program at Carnegie Hall in 2009, her “dazzling clarity, warmly fluid, seamless playing, [and] probing intelligence” led unsurprisingly to “a tumultuous ovation” (The New York Times).

Performers

Mitsuko Uchida, Piano

Program

ALL-BEETHOVEN PROGRAM

Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109

Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110

Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111

Event Duration

The printed program will last approximately 95 minutes, including one 20-minute intermission. Please note that there will be no late seating before intermission.

Listen to Selected Works

Ernst & Young Logo
Sponsored by Ernst & Young LLP
Mitsuko Uchida’s Perspectives series is made possible by a leadership gift from Jean and Melanie Salata.
Support for this concert is provided by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation.

At a Glance

BEETHOVEN  Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109

Beethoven’s first piano sonatas followed hard on the heels of his Op. 1 piano trios, in which the composer declared his artistic independence. By the time he wrote the last few of his 32 sonatas in the early 1820s, he was no longer a young lion but a battle-scarred warrior whose indomitable spirit shines through in the incandescent slow movement of the E-Major Sonata.

 

 

BEETHOVEN  Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110

One of Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas, the A-flat–Major Sonata is full of strong and unpredictable contrasts. Throughout the work, 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.

 

 

BEETHOVEN  Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111

In the radiant ending to his final piano sonata, Beethoven gives free rein to his poetic imagination. 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.”

Bios

Mitsuko Uchida

One of the most revered artists of our time, Mitsuko Uchida is known as a peerless interpreter of the works of Mozart, Schubert, R. Schumann, and Beethoven, as well as for being a devotee of the piano music of Berg, Schoenberg, Webern, and György Kurtág. She is Musical America’s ...

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