Mitsuko Uchida and Mahler Chamber Orchestra

* Notes *
Mahler Chamber Orchestra played a couple of Mozart piano concertos with Mitsuko Uchida (pictured with the orchestra, photograph by A. Bofill) as director and pianist at Cal Performances last Sunday. The playing was crisp and animated.

Uchida had the orchestra sounding clear and there was a sense of breath in the phrasing. The flute and the first oboe could sound aggressive, but in the best way. The strings too were harsh in their down bows during the first Allegro vivace in Piano Concerto No. 18 in B-flat major, K. 456, but it was certainly different, I haven't thought Mozart being approached this way. I loved Uchida's playing, her legato is so perfectly smooth and her staccato so differentiated from that.

Uchida's cadenza in the Allegro maestoso of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C major, K. 467 was almost romantic. The playing was so beautiful in the Andante, it had me in tears, and that last Allegro vivace assai was joyous.

We also heard Janáček's Mládí (1924) for Wind Sextet in between the Mozart pieces. Scored for flute/piccolo, oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, and horn, the musicians all stood in a semi-circle to play. The piece is funny and spirited, people couldn't keep themselves from laughing at times, and there was spontaneous applause after the first movement Allegro. The music is lushly verdant and was deftly played.

* Tattling *
The performance started 5 minutes late, but included a dedication to composer Sofia Gubaidulina, who died a week ago and to chemistry professor Alex Pines, who passed away on November 1, 2024. Pines was a great supporter of Cal Performances. Both my companion at the performance and I were in his Chemistry 1A in Pimentel Hall, where he would play classical music recordings before class started.

There was a little electronic noise noted during a quiet part of Piano Concerto No. 21. Otherwise, there was a lot of coughing and rustling of cough drop wrappers.