Mitsuko Uchida and Kurt Sanderling’s Beethoven cycle reaches its apex with an “Emperor” concerto that ranks with Schnabel, Solomon, Kempff, Arrau, Fleisher, and Gieseking among this warhorse’s finest recorded versions. Much of the credit is due to the fastidious detail and potent sonority Sanderling elicits from the Bavarian Radio Orchestra. He clarifies oft-buried woodwind and brass lines not so much by highlighting as by projection, encouraging his forces to give each and every note its due. The orchestra, in turn, plays with blood, sweat, and cojones. Buoyed by her sturdy surroundings, Uchida’s musicianly virtuosity flourishes at inspired peaks in the outer movements. Pianists like Claudio Arrau and Emil Gilels may bring more inner rapture to the Adagio un poco mosso, but Uchida’s cooler deportment pays no less heed to the music’s lyric repose. Uchida’s C minor Variations doesn’t displace my affection for the lapadarian refinement of Ivan Moravec’s fingerwork or Arrau’s quasi-operatic, bronze-tinged sonority in this work. Still, her secure, well-considered performance augers well for any other solo Beethoven she might care to record. Watch this space. [3/9/2000]
