2/26/2019 Mitsuko Uchida: 'You have to risk your life on stage' | Music | The Guardian

Interview
Mitsuko Uchida: 'You have to risk your life on stage'
Fiona Maddocks
The internationally acclaimed pianist celebrates her 70th birthday this month. She talks
about performing, her ‘four saints’, and why Beethoven is getting in the way of her
sabbatical
Tue 4 Dec 2018 09.49 EST

Time is of the essence for Mitsuko Uchida, pianist supreme and one of the world’s most revered
and loved musicians. This Japanese-born, Austrian-raised Londoner blocks her day around long
periods of practice in her west London studio. A strict regime suits her need, in life and in music,
for both monkish discipline and gregarious, unbuttoned, exhilarating freedom.

Arriving early, I listen outside to a fabulous cascade of virtuosic pianism. This autumn she is
touring a series of six Schubert sonatas, with two concerts at the Royal Festival Hall in December,
the month in which she turns 70. On the dot, feeling like an intruder, I ring the bell. The music
speeds up, rushes to the final chords and seconds later Uchida flings open the door. (Later I see my
watch was fast. She was bang on time.)

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/dec/04/mitsuko-uchida-pianist-schubert-mozart-70th-birthday-interview?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR05DAOmttTzh… 1/4
2/26/2019 Mitsuko Uchida: 'You have to risk your life on stage' | Music | The Guardian

“I only have two pianos right now,” Uchida says, ushering me into the building where she works,
wooden-floored and draped with sound-baffling hangings. “Two are away on tour. I don’t buy
jewels or furs or antiques. Just pianos!” She has another, a baby grand, in her mews house
opposite, where we retreat to talk.

In the space of crossing the tiny courtyard and making tea – brown Japanese for her, first flush
Darjeeling for me – with sharp attention to temperature and colour, she pronounces on Trump and
Brexit (no fan of either), getting older (philosophical), sexism in music (she recognises it but
hasn’t experienced it), ageism (ditto) and dark Belgian chocolate (she’s a dedicated consumer).

The house, her home for over three decades, is simple and ordered. Her long-term partner, Robert
Cooper, a retired diplomat, lives next door. While her aesthetic may be minimal, there’s nothing
clinical about Uchida. Away from the piano, her manner is warm, prone to explosive laughter, her
voice quiet and intense when debating an aspect of music.

Has her attitude to work changed over the years? “How I’ve changed in myself is difficult to say.
One thing is clear: I have always stayed a student. I’ve just got older. I’m basically someone who
studies and who tries hard every day.”

There’s no chance to take issue with this modest self-assessment. “There’s another constant in the
past 20 years – my devotion to German music. The second Viennese school, but also Bach, Mozart,
Beethoven, Schubert. Those are the four saints. I hope in the next few years I’ll start expanding
my repertoire again. Back will come Chopin – as non-German as can be. And I’d love to branch out
and play Janáček.”

‘I’m basically someone who studies and who tries hard everyday’ -
Pianist Mitsuko Uchida. Photograph: Geoffroy Schied Photography

But this will come after some time out, scheduled for 2021. “I want to have a bit of time to myself,
so I can look out of the window. So that I can study stuff without having sleepless nights thinking
about whether I got it right or wrong. I had wanted to have a sabbatical. But it’s the wrong time as
2020 is Beethoven year [the 250th anniversary of his birth] and I will play his Diabelli Variations
for the first time in various places such as Carnegie Hall and at a late-night Prom.”

In this same “year off” she is also continuing with a five-year Mozart concerto series, playing and
directing, with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. “I can’t skip that …” And she remains artistic
director of Marlboro Music, the US retreat for advanced professional musical training in Vermont.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/dec/04/mitsuko-uchida-pianist-schubert-mozart-70th-birthday-interview?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR05DAOmttTzh… 2/4
2/26/2019 Mitsuko Uchida: 'You have to risk your life on stage' | Music | The Guardian

Uchida, born in the seaside town of Atami in 1948, left Japan when she was 12, for Austria, where
her father was Japan’s ambassador. “I’m a European. That’s how I think of myself. Until I play in
Tokyo and then I feel Japanese.” She started playing the piano aged three and gave her first
professional recital at 14. Two years later, when her family returned to Japan, she stayed on alone
to study, soon winning the Vienna Beethoven prize and, in 1975, second prize in the Leeds Piano
Competition.

By then she had settled in London. “I’d been in Vienna for a long time. I wanted to get out and
London was the place things seemed to be happening.” she says. “It was open in attitude. Now
England is closing in.” During the 1980s and 1990s she recorded the Mozart piano concertos,
conducted by the late Jeffrey Tate, and made a TV series with him. Not only was she glamorous in
her various Issey Miyake tops , she was a female virtuoso who could talk, scintillatingly, about
music: quite a novelty at the time. Mozart’s concertos have remained a mainstay.

“I remember being in the Berlin Konzerthaus with [the conductor] Kurt Sanderling, in the wings
about to go on. I said to him, how could anyone write something as beautiful as the opening to
K488? He replied, ‘Of course Mozart didn’t write it. Der liebe Gott – God – was moving the pen for
him.’” Did she agree? Gales of laughter.

“No, no of course not! Mozart’s world is in the world of humans. The music came straight out of
Wolfgang’s brains! The speed with which he worked is so different from that absolute, clearcut
labour of Beethoven, who you can feel must have spent weeks, months, thinking and plotting. In
Mozart it seems as if there was no premeditation.”

Uchida has always dug deep into her chosen repertoire, preferring not to mix different composers’
sound worlds at any one time. There’s a purity in her approach, which extends to the limpid
precision of her playing. “Now it’s Schubert. Dear Schubert, an unimaginable genius, living a life
of such abject loneliness.”

Her London concerts pair Schubert’s middle A minor (D784) sonata with the big, late A major
(D959). “I never thought putting those two into the same programme was going to reveal such
unbelievable tragedy, clashing in different ways.” These are the kind of discoveries she still makes
with works she’s played all her career.

“I am not an obsessive performer. My absolute maximum number of concerts is 55 a year. That’s

tiny compared to most, who play at least 100, even as many as 140. That’s madness for me. I
couldn’t handle it. I remember Elena Bashkirova, Daniel Barenboim’s wife, saying that for Daniel,
a day without a concert is punishment. For me, a day without a concert means I can breathe
freely.”

The clock on the table has moved past the allotted hour. We speed up. Can she enjoy concerts?

“Yes, absolutely. And I can listen to music too, without feeling under pressure that I ought to be
working.”

What about that moment when she walks on to the platform?

“That’s the moment of truth. All the rest is pretending. That’s why you have to perform. You work
differently. You learn different things. You have to risk your life on stage. That’s why live
performances are more interesting.”

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/dec/04/mitsuko-uchida-pianist-schubert-mozart-70th-birthday-interview?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR05DAOmttTzh… 3/4
2/26/2019 Mitsuko Uchida: 'You have to risk your life on stage' | Music | The Guardian

Is it possible to avoid risks? “Yes, but the more you know, the harder it is to perform. The risks
become so dangerous. I used to think it would grow easier as I got older and wiser, but I can swear
it hasn’t. Maybe because I’m not wiser … ”

Uchida’s slight frame rocks with laughter. “One thing hasn’t changed. Every day of my life that I
am allowed to play Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and the music of our own time too, especially
that of my beloved friend, György Kurtág – this, to me, is a gift from somewhere. If heaven
existed, it’s heaven.”

Mitsuko Uchida is at the Royal Festival Hall, London on 4 and 7 December, and with the Mahler
•

Chamber Orchestra on 6 February.

We made a choice…
… and we want to tell you about it. Our journalism now reaches record numbers around the world
and more than a million people have supported our reporting. We continue to face financial
challenges but, unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall. We want our
journalism to remain accessible to all, regardless of where they live or what they can afford.

This is The Guardian’s model for open, independent journalism: free for those who can’t afford it,
supported by those who can. Readers’ support powers our work, safeguarding our essential
editorial independence. This means the responsibility of protecting independent journalism is
shared, enabling us all to feel empowered to bring about real change in the world. Your support
gives Guardian journalists the time, space and freedom to report with tenacity and rigour, to shed
light where others won’t. It emboldens us to challenge authority and question the status quo. And
by keeping all of our journalism free and open to all, we can foster inclusivity, diversity, make
space for debate, inspire conversation – so more people have access to accurate information with
integrity at its heart.

Guardian journalism is rooted in facts with a progressive perspective on the world. We are
editorially independent, meaning we set our own agenda. Our journalism is free from commercial
bias and not influenced by billionaire owners, politicians or shareholders. No one steers our
opinion. At a time when there are so few sources of information you can really trust, this is vital as
it enables us to give a voice to those less heard, challenge the powerful and hold them to account.
Your support means we can keep investigating and exploring the critical issues of our time.

Our model allows people to support us in a way that works for them. Every time a reader like you
makes a contribution to The Guardian, no matter how big or small, it goes directly into funding
our journalism. But we need to build on this support for the years ahead. Support The Guardian
from as little as $1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

Support The Guardian

Free for those who can’t afford it

Supported by those who can
Topics
Classical music
interviews

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/dec/04/mitsuko-uchida-pianist-schubert-mozart-70th-birthday-interview?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR05DAOmttTzh… 4/4