San Francisco Classical Voice

Mitsuko Uchida's recital at Herbst Theater on Sunday evening for San Francisco Performances was a triumph, a remarkable exception to the lack of great piano playing so typical of San Francisco. Unlike New York, Boston, or Los Angeles, this city is not a real piano town. We don't have huge ranks of aficionados to populate numerous piano recitals, nor do we have piano festivals, salons, or serious competitions. Consequently, many great pianists simply pass us by (our symphony certainly is not terribly imaginative about bringing in keyboard artists).

Uchida is a unique artist. She played a wonderfully arranged program that included Chopin's Second Sonata, Op. 35, Anton Webern's Variations, Op. 27, Mozart's Adagio in B Minor, K. 540, and Schubert's Sonata in D Major, D. 850. In every way it was a success, including details: the excellent program notes by Eric Bromberger were informative while still attractively chatty, the large audience was quietly attentive, then roaringly enthusiastic, and the German Steinway under Uchida's hands possessed beautiful sound and subtle responsiveness.

Uchida began with repertoire not usually associated with her, Chopin's Funeral March sonata. Famous for her Mozart, Schubert, and Schoenberg, this pianist delivered a virtuosic performance that Rubinstein or Cherkassky would have been proud of. It was distinguished by an utterly sure sense of phrasing, big rich sound, breathtaking pianissimos, and astonishing rhythmic freedom. My only complaint is that in the first movement there were so many expansions and ritardandos that the development's big climax became too big and too wide too early. With that however the warmth and sheer intelligence were staggering.

She shaped the ending of the first movement exposition in such a way that the rarely taken repeat made perfect sense. (Uchida took every repeat all evening, including the encore's) The quiet heart of the funeral march actually brought tears to my jaded eyes. And the last movement, Presto, was unsettling and thrilling. It is possible to paint by numbers in this movement, coloring in the harmonies so it makes sense in an overly clear and rather pedestrian way. Uchida contrived instead to make the harmonic reference points elusive, alternately whispering and snarling.

Who else would begin with Chopin's Romantic showstopper, progress through Webern's delicate and prickly etchings, and end the first half with Mozart's quietest, saddest work for piano? The plan worked stunningly. Chopin was given freshness and dignity (indeed, a new lease on life) by being played first: we were asked to accord it the respect and attention we normally give the Beethoven usually found in this place of prominence. The explosiveness, sweetness, and Romantic gestures were revelatory, both in their program position and under the artist's wise hands. Then the bright colors of the Chopin darkened and led intriguingly, inexorably into the shadowed land of the Webern and Mozart, a dramatic and plausible reversal of the usual journey.

The Webern Variations and Uchida are one of destiny's great matches. The silences, the delicate points of sound, the almost inaudible pianistic sighs produced an unexpected reaction in me: I became aware of Uchida's great patience as an artist, her infinite, unwearying attention to every detail. Her hands were physically beautiful, moving with grace and cunning and patience through the spare sounds and silences.

Then Uchida made her most telling and theatrical move. Pausing only a few seconds at the end of the Webern, she started to play the Mozart Adagio, almost as if it were another movement. The three quiet, unadorned notes with which it begins were so like Webern that it was startling: Uchida tricked us into entering Mozart's world via the harrowing, hyperfocused, ultrasensitive world of the Vienna Second School. Her performance of this work was most memorable, holding her audience in that mesmerized, almost neurotically focused state until the final, supremely consoling measures in B major.

The Schubert was a conclusion worthy of this recital. On one level what distinguishes Uchida is her integrity: she is as honest and serious and intelligent a performer as I have ever encountered. On another level it is more elusive -- sheer talent, charisma, dazzling musicality, the animal stuff of piano playing. Everything was brought into play in this long and terribly difficult sonata.

In the first movement Uchida quirkily but admirably decided to make the five repeated chords of the first theme an entity in themselves. That is, they did not start slightly softer or slower and go somewhere, as most pianists would shape them. Instead, they simply were an exuberant fat sausage in D major. The second movement was sublimely beautiful, including a melting version of what has always struck me as the world's first tango.

The problematic last movement, which looks back over 50 years to Haydn's Vienna and ahead 75 years to Mahler's Vienna, was simply not problematic. Uchida carried it off. The encore was the Andante Cantabile from Mozart's C Major Sonata, K. 330, deliciously appropriate because its three-note upbeat echoed the same three-note structure in the Schubert slow movement.

Everyone present in Herbst Theater seemed aware that this was one of those rare and blessed moments of greatness. I walked out into the rain-cleaned night air exalted and full of memories of long-ago student days in New York when we were giddy and hopeful, never realizing how rare such evenings would become.

(Mack McCray is a concert pianist and a member of the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.)

©2000 Mack McCray, all rights reserved