Schumann’s Piano Concerto – Simon Rattle and Mitsuko Uchida

Mitsuko Uchida and Sir Simon Rattle: one of the great musical partnerships of our time, in a concert filled with sweet and sorrowful longing.

True romance: Robert Schumann was utterly smitten with his wife Clara, a world-famous pianist. And whether it’s the drama of Genoveva or the tenderness of his only Piano Concerto, it’s easy to hear that his inspiration was love.

You can’t miss the emotion in Rachmaninoff’s Third Symphony, either. It’s the sound of an artist exiled from his roots, singing sad sweet songs in a new world filled with film scores and jazz.

Mitsuko Uchida is one of those rare performers who manages to touch both head and heart. Superbly skilled, but never superficial. Deeply perceptive, but always sincere. And after six decades playing great music, she always has something fresh, and wonderful, to say.

‘The whole world is open to me and success awaits me everywhere. Only one place is closed to me, and that is my own country.’
~Sergei Rachmaninoff

Main image © Geoffroy Schied