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COPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Schubert's Sonata in G begins with a beautiful, sleepy, not immediately gripping theme--not so much a melody as a murmur of chords. It keeps ambling out in various directions only to retreat to the same delectable place, as if it could not rouse itself from its G-major bed. When I was studying piano, I foolishly decided that this was one of the Master's more insignificant efforts, and skipped forward to the Sonata in B Flat, which has a way of sounding unutterably sublime even in the hands of a bumbling amateur. I felt an extra, private sense of wonder when Mitsuko Uchida played the G-Major Sonata the other night at Carnegie Hall and unlocked Schubert's secrets one by one. It is one thing to get all the notes right; any number of unsocialized conservatory prodigies can do that. It is another thing to play the thoughts within the notes, the light around them, the darkness behind them, the silence at the end of the phrase. That is what inspires awe.
Carnegie has given Uchida a place in its "Perspectives"series, which allows a performer to step outside the virtuoso role and become a roving programming consultant, responsible not only for recitals but also for chamber-music and orchestral events. Uchida's...
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