Mitsuko Uchida

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety six, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is a pianist. She comes from Japan, but has made her name playing the great German masters, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, and particularly Mozart. As a child she was talented, but not a prodigy. It was only when her family moved to Vienna when she was twelve that she was able to immerse herself fully in the music she loved.

Presenter0:49

She's won many prizes, although she attaches little importance to them. Meticulous, intellectual, and not a little enigmatic, her aim is always to keep faith with the composer whose work she's trying to interpret. She's lived in London for more than twenty years now, where she says, Slowly, slowly, I feel I've become freer, which means I can give expression to what I've learned. She is Mitsuko Uchida. Uh I've said, Mitsko, that you weren't a child prodigy, but but you were playing the piano at three years old, weren't you?

Mitsuko Uchida1:18

Yes, you got

Presenter1:19

That's right.

Mitsuko Uchida1:20

But uh there was something very peculiar about it. I cannot remember my first experiences with music, but I do remember the pieces I was playing at the age of four, the ones that I liked, even pre four years old, I think, because I remember playing a

Mitsuko Uchida1:36

For my ear now, rather nasty Burkmüller piece for children. And I like one of them. Yes, I had a piano lesson at the age of three and a half, and that came because I am the youngest of three children. And my older brother was having a piano lesson. And my mother claims that I started as answering his questions. And the piano teacher said, Well, if the little one is more interested than than this boy, why don't you give her let her play the piano? And so it starts.

Presenter1:41

Yeah.

Speaker 41:41

And why like all of them?

Presenter2:00

And did your parents then ask you to perform to friends and relat relations as they do?

Mitsuko Uchida2:06

particularly wanted me to play for friends and relations, which I loathed. There was a streak of professionalism in me. I wanted to play when I felt I was ready and not when they wanted me to. And that was such a struggle. And I nearly thought seriously about it, that I would stop pian playing the piano, because then I would not face this ghastly dilemma of having to play in front of people when a piece is that I think I'm not ready.

Mitsuko Uchida2:33

But do you enjoy performance these days?

Mitsuko Uchida2:35

I love it, but you know what I love it most?

Mitsuko Uchida2:39

Sitting at home, playing the piano, listening to music and playing oneself, which is even more beautiful than anything else, even playing badly is such pleasure. But playing badly on stage is excruciating. So playing badly at home, that is the true moment of bliss. How often do you play badly on stage? Very often I'm afraid.

Presenter3:01

And then you regret. But uh going back to that statement I quoted at the beginning, slowly, slowly I feel I've become freer, obviously that implies that in the past you haven't been free.

Presenter3:13

Is it can I ask just in in some way perhaps your Japanese upbringing that has a strange you?

Presenter3:27

way of life. So that being taught the piano in Japan would have been one w a a method which was very sort of technical, mechanical

Mitsuko Uchida3:35

Yes, it was and it was deeply discouraged to love it.

Mitsuko Uchida3:40

It was a kind of an duty and obligation, and duty it is not so I remember as a child practising the absolute minimum.

Mitsuko Uchida3:50

Because people sort of objected the moment you were enjoying yourself so much and you ought to be practicing. Oh, goodness me, w how how can a child cope with that? So I must have had quite a good memory as a child already in terms of music. So my teacher never knew how little I practised, because I produced sort of stuff sort of that I played in front of her as if I'd been practicing a lot, but I didn't. And I just uh every now and then I think about it. Would I have been born elsewhere?

Mitsuko Uchida4:17

and had a different exposure to music, what would have become of me? I would probably have been much more advanced at an early age. But

Mitsuko Uchida4:28

Life is never

Mitsuko Uchida4:30

Ideal. And life is what you make out of. And anyway, I I can't complain too much. Tell me about your first record.

Mitsuko Uchida4:39

Well, the first choice, under any circumstance, if I were given only one choice, I will take this one and cry my eyes out that I'm leaving everything else behind. And that one record or recording would be the Bach's solo cello suites played by Pablo Casals.

Speaker 45:41

Um

Presenter6:03

Part of the last movement Gig of Bach's cello suite number one in G major played by Pablo Casals.

Presenter6:10

There's no real Japanese tradition of music in in the Western sense, Mitsuko, isn't it?

Mitsuko Uchida6:14

No, it is very different indeed. Of course, every culture has folk music which uh which rather beautiful and poignant. The Jap some of the Japanese particularly slow, so the melancholic um folk songs I love. Um and and of course uh lullabies and all that. But nothing

Presenter6:30

Nothing in the Western sense about the music. But in your house it was different because in your house there was Fort Wengler and Blech conducting the Berlin.

Mitsuko Uchida6:32

Prince of own court

Mitsuko Uchida6:33

None of that.

Mitsuko Uchida6:41

That's true, yes. Well, that was because my father was in the diplomatic service and he spent something like twenty years of his life in Germany, or German speaking speaking countries. And he was in the thirties in Germany, and throughout the Second World War he spent in Berlin.

Mitsuko Uchida6:57

And Berlin was a center of musical events, and he loved opera.

Mitsuko Uchida7:03

and was subscriber to the Philharmonic concerts and the opera, he some ingenious record company started sending the new releases to the subscribers of the the Philharmonic or the Opera House.

Mitsuko Uchida7:19

He got them. He was never bothered to return. So four weeks later he got the bill and paid up. So it is not that he collected, but he inadvertently landed with a mass with masses of seventy eights, which he brought home to Japan.

Presenter7:34

Which he brought home to Japan.

Mitsuko Uchida7:35

He did. And my mother strangely rescued them through the war, which is a very strange thing to do. But they never played them, your parents? Hardly. But apparently my mother listened to it a lot when she was very lonely in the during the war.

Mitsuko Uchida7:48

But did you then, as a small girl, who was obviously, as you said, very

Presenter7:51

Yeah.

Mitsuko Uchida7:52

Get them out and play them. Got them out and virtually everything I can remember was uh vocal music.

Mitsuko Uchida8:01

folk songs or some Schubert that I didn't know that it was Schubert, some Schumann that I didn't know it was Schumann. But you liked it? I loved them. Tell me about your second record. Well, it is My Great Love, which is Franz Schubert. Now, he is the composer whose music I would like to be playing.

Mitsuko Uchida8:21

When I die.

Mitsuko Uchida8:22

And and one of the central pieces.

Mitsuko Uchida8:26

of music by Schubert is the winteriser.

Speaker 48:31

Primed upon wonden ruven.

Speaker 48:36

So easy more blue and even ball.

Speaker 48:41

Icht ripe on green beasen for loop stigma gashraf stigm folgas rim.

Speaker 48:59

Puntastiena crete.

Speaker 18:59

Trustiena Kreita.

Speaker 49:02

I vust my love, I've all

Presenter9:24

Part of Frilling's tram from Schubert's Vinterreiser performed by Benjamin Britton and Peter Peirce.

Presenter9:30

Your family then, Mitsuko, moved to Vienna when you were twelve years old. Your father was made Japanese ambassador there. Could you speak any German at all? Not a w

Mitsuko Uchida9:39

word and I found it extremely difficult.'Cause don't give me that the children learn quickly, that sort of rubbish. Not at all. It depends on child and child probably and frame of mind and all that. I found it much more much easier when I was twenty three or so and started learning English, because that was the first time that I really started to speak English in some form or another. But then you don't you already knew a European language and that is that makes a huge

Presenter9:59

But then you don't you

Presenter10:04

The initial

Mitsuko Uchida10:05

THERE SISHING From Japan to Austria was horrendous. It was horrendous. And if then

Presenter10:07

It was hot and traumatic.

Mitsuko Uchida10:11

The psychoanalysis and all that would have been trendy. Wow, would I have needed a psychoanalysis indeed? Child psychologist. Well, you're in the right place. Yes, but then nobody in Vienna talked about it. It's quite interesting because Vienna is a world um which is very claustrophobic.

Presenter10:18

Well, you're in the right place.

Mitsuko Uchida10:28

and Schoenberg, Feud, whoever, all the important people, they got an actually basically they all got got out. And then one day when they are very, very important, they reimport them.

Presenter10:42

But at what point did you feel you were in the right place? Because eventually you were to decide to stay there eventually.

Mitsuko Uchida10:43

But I think

Mitsuko Uchida10:47

Yeah.

Mitsuko Uchida10:48

Well when I was sixteen and my father went elsewhere, that was the moment of truth in my life. And I thought to myself, if I followed my father, I out of me would be probably a nice, friendly

Mitsuko Uchida11:02

quite good nice uh piano player, who is the nice daughter and I don't know what. But um I shall never be a professional.

Mitsuko Uchida11:12

And so I decided I shall give it a go.

Mitsuko Uchida11:15

But also at the same time I loved to read and I wanted to study. And if somebody would have thrown something interesting at me, I may have said no no, then I'm gonna study philosophy or something crazy. You never know. But you gave the public recital at quite an early age, didn't you? At yes, at fourteen, a full recital, which was my official debut probably. What did you play?

Presenter11:28

Quite immediate.

Mitsuko Uchida11:35

I played Bach, A, Bach, Toccata, and then I played B Doven Sonata, Opusten number two I remember, and then I played some Dubus C, a group of Dubusi and a B minor sonata of Chopin, so fairly large sort of programme, and I was fourteen. It was quite ambitious for fourteen years. Yeah, but uh it was not necessarily that that I chose the programme. My my my teacher probably devised it.

Presenter11:53

Yeah.

Presenter11:58

But where was this?

Mitsuko Uchida11:59

I was in Vienna, in in the Brahmsal, and I remember him asking me that that then the week after my recital when I I went to the to the school for the lesson, he said, Now you know you are going to be a pianist, don't you? and I said, No. And he was furious. So you hadn't enjoyed the performance? I did. But for me there was uh it is very str strange. It says probably more about me than about the fact that I loved music or not. But to me it was clear that I could not say I want to be a musician because I did not know what it took to be a musician. I love music. That is not yet a justification to be a musician, I thought.

Mitsuko Uchida12:39

Tell me about your third record.

Mitsuko Uchida12:41

Brahm's piano concerto number two in B-flat.

Mitsuko Uchida12:44

Um and the performer, the pianist is Edwin Fischer, whom I have adored over the years. He has got some purity in his playing that touches me whatever he plays. And the conductor is Wilhelm Votwengler. So this is the two great loves of mine put together for one great, great piece of music. So it is a public performance.

Presenter14:08

The opening of Brahm's Piano Concerto No. two, played by Edwin Fischer with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Wilhelm Frotwengler. You uh let's talk about Mozart for a moment. You didn't much care for the way you were taught him, did you, in Vienna?

Mitsuko Uchida14:21

Well, it was very difficult. Probably everything that I was taught I found was difficult. And probably that, um, again is my problem because I

Mitsuko Uchida14:32

Always disliked.

Mitsuko Uchida14:34

The way I play

Mitsuko Uchida14:36

And I tried to

Mitsuko Uchida14:39

play more beautifully or more

Mitsuko Uchida14:42

or to understand what I was doing and to get closer to the music. And most of the time I disliked it. So that is why I have kept on playing the piano ever since, to play a notch better every day.

Mitsuko Uchida14:57

I dislike the sound I produced. So therefore I tried to produce a sound that I liked. But I hope you like it these days. Sometimes.

Presenter14:57

I dislike you dislike.

Presenter15:07

Uh

Presenter15:08

But I think am I right in thinking that you you found the approach to Mozart again much too rigid, much too conservative?

Mitsuko Uchida15:11

Anyway

Mitsuko Uchida15:16

Yes, I found it very rigid indeed. So did it put you off playing Mozart? No, not at all, but I still kept but uh uh playing him or studying him, but more of I have I have played more bit often, more Dubusi and and so on, and a lot of masses of Chopin. I must ask.

Presenter15:35

Oscar, you very memorably in 1985 performed the complete cycle of Mozart's concerti, conducting them as well from the piano, much acclaimed.

Mitsuko Uchida15:43

Yeah.

Presenter15:45

It must have been very tough going, nevertheless.

Mitsuko Uchida15:48

Oh yes, oh yes it is both tough and and riveting.

Mitsuko Uchida15:54

What happens is that the orchestra players would l would be compelled to listen to you because a lot of the time when my hands are at the keyboard, the players have to just to listen.

Mitsuko Uchida16:04

And that has got a wonderful effect on an orchestra, provided it is a chamber group that which is used to playing with the ears and not playing

Presenter16:13

Maybe the eyes. But you also, of course, if you haven't got a conductor, you'd have eye contact fr from the piano.

Mitsuko Uchida16:20

Absolutely. With the orchestra, you look at each other, you listen to each other. Oh, that is wonderful. That is what is or what chamber music is all about. And that is ultimately what I like doing. Almost m uh the best is playing with somebody else.

Presenter16:20

Absolutely.

Mitsuko Uchida16:35

So chamber music and accompanying voices, I love doing that.

Mitsuko Uchida16:40

Without the conductor in between. Nobody else in between, and not completely alone either, that you make music together with somebody.

Mitsuko Uchida16:49

Record number four. That, of course, had to be Mozart.

Mitsuko Uchida16:55

I think when I heard some of the Kleinborn performances conducted by Fritz Busch, I discovered that is really closer to the way I would wish to hear Mozart. So if I were to choose one opera, then it is actually Cosie Van Tutte.

Mitsuko Uchida17:11

It is um

Mitsuko Uchida17:13

the most Mozartian in the way that it is so human.

Mitsuko Uchida17:17

completely unjudgmental. Because well judgmental is, for example, Beethoven. For him, virtue is important. Strength of humanity is important. Human beings want to be free. All that is important. These are virtues and concepts. Mozart is a man

Mitsuko Uchida17:36

Uh for whom

Mitsuko Uchida17:38

Those things are not that important. He just sees the humans as they are with their weaknesses. And he personally was certainly a person with enormous amount of weaknesses. But he did not go round saying, No, I'm going to convert, therefore, but he looked at all of those elements, those human elements and human relationships, and wrote the most moving and sublime music. So it is a human expression and human weakness included. And so therefore I love it. And Cosy is about that.

Speaker 118:17

Uh

Speaker 418:22

All sees trouble.

Speaker 418:28

Your wish we'll be

Speaker 418:45

Yeah.

Speaker 418:57

A deep

Presenter19:02

Part of the quintet from Act One of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tute, sung by Senna Urinak, Blanche Thiebaum, Erich Kuntz, Richard Lewis, and Mario Barriello, with the Gleinborn Festival Orchestra conducted by Fritz Busch.

Presenter19:15

There was a a a long, slow period in your career, Mitchell.

Mitsuko Uchida19:19

And it is

Presenter19:19

Do.

Mitsuko Uchida19:19

It is a long, slow, slow uh matter and I want it to be a long, slow process and

Presenter19:25

But that's because that's how you like it now. But but but I'm talking about the really the part before you really achieved recognition. How difficult was it? I mean, did you did you starve in the proverbial garret?

Mitsuko Uchida19:37

Not quite, but I lived on I lived a very frugal life, and which in a way I still do. So because life has um not changed that dramatically. Now I have to stay in expensive hotels to protect myself when I'm per performing. But otherwise, um I still have no cars, I don't drive, um I well, that I don't own a television, that is out of uh my uh my preference, but um I don't need a Rolls-Royce, I don't need to have a private jet, I well, I don't need to have a big um villa somewhere. How many pianos do you need to have? Ah, that's a different story. I'm I want many however many are. How many have you got? At the moment, but I have got one small one in in Tokyo, with still at my parents' house. Um that was the first piano that he my father bought me. Then the first piano I bought myself at the age of seventeen, that was a small burzen offer which I still kept.

Mitsuko Uchida20:31

Two concert grand Steinways that those two are necessity of life for me and and I have another Steinway elsewhere, and then a small Longman and Broadrip seventeen nineties. That is a a square small piano on which I have tried to play lots of Mozarts and Haydns.

Mitsuko Uchida20:51

Which is your favourite?

Mitsuko Uchida20:53

Well, I would say my oldest time by concert grand.

Mitsuko Uchida20:58

He is well, I I call it uh well, i I always say my my pianos are always he. So he is very uh personal and very interesting. His expression is something so rich that I I have loved that instrument best over all these years.

Presenter21:15

How physical a business is it playing the piano and how and presumably it differs between composers as to what you put into it physically? A lot.

Mitsuko Uchida21:21

What you put into it physically.

Mitsuko Uchida21:23

Yeah.

Presenter21:24

Yeah.

Mitsuko Uchida21:24

And it is very physical as well as very mental.

Mitsuko Uchida21:28

and emotional, spiritual, but the physical aspect is enormous.

Presenter21:36

But you physically I mean how who who which composer do you use to put your psh?

Mitsuko Uchida21:41

shoulders into it as it were. On uh on in the sound, that as I hear it. No shoulders. No shoulders and no even the weight of the arm. My I have very light bones. Still I have to be careful with the weight.

Presenter21:42

Whoa

Mitsuko Uchida22:05

But the people like Brahms, you really virtual, I have to sit on the keyboard, otherwise the sound is wrong. It sounds too too light. A bit of and lots of shoulders and and and um and and well, um energy and womph, you see. Attack, attack. Yes.

Mitsuko Uchida22:23

Record number five. Yes, and there we come to a bit of end.

Mitsuko Uchida22:27

He's central, most

Mitsuko Uchida22:30

concentrated and purest form of his composition, I still think,

Mitsuko Uchida22:34

were the string quartets and

Mitsuko Uchida22:38

I still end up, after having listened to lots of wonderful performances, when it comes to slow movements of Beethoven's string quartets, nobody actually surpasses Busch and his quartet.

Presenter23:44

Part of the slow movement of Beethoven's string quartet, opus one three two, played by the Adolphe Busch quartet.

Presenter23:51

You came to uh to London, Mitsuko, when you were twenty four after twelve years in Vienna and and you've been here ever since. I suppose that makes you a European, really now.

Mitsuko Uchida24:00

But in many ways, well it is very strange. Wherever I come back from, whether it is Japan or America or so, and I reach sort of uh the the air space of Europe and I look down and think, Oh, I'm back in Europe and that the the feeling is I'm back home, yes, home.

Mitsuko Uchida24:17

How are you

Presenter24:17

You regarded in Japan in that case? Strange.

Mitsuko Uchida24:20

Uh

Mitsuko Uchida24:22

Uh

Mitsuko Uchida24:23

Said you always were strange. Yes, I'm certainly I was certainly and thoroughly strange under any circumstance, but I'm becoming probably m stranger by the day. And also linguistically, it is very strange because Japanese is a language used

Presenter24:25

When you went

Mitsuko Uchida24:38

Um in order to agree.

Mitsuko Uchida24:40

And I prefer to use the language, if possible, to try to

Mitsuko Uchida24:48

Clarify my thoughts. Because music, in a way, you everybody tells you music is the language without language. But even in music, you do need certain keywords. And to express y yourself or and to formulate a thought, you do need a sentence. So you do need grammar. And then clarifying is very important for me in order to use the mu uh the use the music as well as the language. But but London is your home, your base, is your bicycle. And that is where I keep my music, my books, all my music, and all my books.

Presenter25:24

And

Mitsuko Uchida25:24

Okay.

Presenter25:24

Those you use all of the time to prepare, you study, you do fewer concerts, I think, fewer performances than than many other professionals.

Mitsuko Uchida25:32

Many people

Presenter25:32

Yeah.

Mitsuko Uchida25:33

Probably so, because and I um I simply say, because I am not as clever as most, I want and also I want to have the time to enjoy music.

Mitsuko Uchida25:43

Um without having to be exposed.

Presenter25:45

But it's also part of your being meticulous, isn't it? You screwed your nose up when I said meticulous in the introduction. It's not a criticism, is it?

Mitsuko Uchida25:51

It's not a criticism. No, no. But of course, because.

Mitsuko Uchida25:58

First encounter is the most emotional moment anyway.

Mitsuko Uchida26:02

And then the last encounter is also that. In between are all these different phases.

Mitsuko Uchida26:09

And you want the and I need time, I need time to even well, of course listen to music certainly, which takes time, but also just dreaming. I need time to dream, doing nothing, listening to nothing, just even looking out of the window or sitting in the dark and just dreaming. Without it, somehow I get stuck. So I take the time off to well, to do nothing.

Mitsuko Uchida26:35

Next piece of music.

Mitsuko Uchida26:37

Now we come to again to Johann Sebastian Bach, which I'm afraid he is very important to me.

Mitsuko Uchida26:45

But also the performer who plays this piece of music is very important to me, possibly one of the most significant.

Mitsuko Uchida26:54

Instrumentalists

Mitsuko Uchida26:56

Um

Mitsuko Uchida26:56

In my life. He is a violinist. Thank God that he was a violinist because I may have got too

Mitsuko Uchida27:02

Influenced by him, would he have been a pianist?

Mitsuko Uchida27:07

He is called Josef Sigeti. He was a Hungarian p uh violinist. And Siggeti Sigeti's approach of absolute honesty and clarity and himself in service of music, that is as I wish I could be, as a

Mitsuko Uchida27:25

Uh performer.

Presenter28:27

The opening of Bach's violin sonata number three in C major, played by Joseph Sigetti.

Presenter28:33

It has to be said, another beautiful piece of music. But should we reveal that you did consider having Winnie the Pooh in this list? Yes.

Mitsuko Uchida28:40

As number eight, as my luxury, I thought I would love to hear We Need a Pooh, because I have got the luxury of being read out loud, which I love. And and We Need a Pooh, the The More It Snows diddly pump. Sung out of tune was what I wanted. But no but no recorded music i i is out of tune, so I abandoned it.

Presenter29:02

This is how your friend sings it to you. Yes. So we we get Schubert instead, but anyway. Tell me about your hands. Do you worry about them?

Mitsuko Uchida29:11

No, not excessively, not at all. They're they are not insured. And I do everything when I cook, which I don't do very often or much, but uh I use knives, everything, and I ride bicycle with gloves, mind you, but still that's it. But they're they're they're very strong, I can see, and they're are they double jointed? Yeah, some of the fingers are double jointed, and that is a very Oriental thing. So, in a way, I am a true I mean, physically, I am built very Japanese. The bones are very thin.

Mitsuko Uchida29:41

and very flexible.

Presenter29:43

Yeah.

Presenter29:45

I I've always thought it must be a very lonely life, being an international.

Presenter29:49

Concert pianists, or that traveling formula hotel rooms where you can't play music to your

Speaker 429:50

Well

Mitsuko Uchida29:51

Yeah.

Mitsuko Uchida29:55

Living out of a suitcase is ve it's very lonely, but then when we come down to it, every f human being is ultimately lonely. So it is slightly exaggerated, but that's life.

Presenter30:07

That

Mitsuko Uchida30:07

Yeah.

Presenter30:07

Pass the time, though, if you're sitting in one of these hotel bedrooms, you know, and you're performing in two hours' time, what do you do?

Mitsuko Uchida30:13

Time, what do you do? Then if it were in two hours' time, I would just have eaten a cake or something, something sweet to k uh, to go through the s that that sugar goes through my blood. I may have even licked uh huge spoonfuls of honey and drank masses of tea.

Mitsuko Uchida30:32

And then playing through the music.

Mitsuko Uchida30:35

Through my head.

Mitsuko Uchida30:37

I may be moving my ha hands and fingers, I but I will be probably immersing myself in the music.

Mitsuko Uchida30:44

Yeah.

Presenter30:44

And before that, I mean, if it if it were earlier than the two hours before How do you stay calm?

Mitsuko Uchida30:50

In anticipation. I wish somebody tells me how to do it and we somehow manage. But when I'm away, when I'm playing a concert in some town,

Presenter30:50

Yeah.

Mitsuko Uchida31:01

I would probably go automatically into a museum because that is a place where you can really look at things that are beautiful, discover make discoveries and even be inspired. Even for that particular piece of music that you are playing, there may be a link between a rembrand picture and a bit of a concerto, for example.

Mitsuko Uchida31:24

Record number seven.

Mitsuko Uchida31:25

Well, so this is the choice. Instead of the tiddly pump, I'm afraid I have chosen the most obvious. That is Schubert String Quintet in C major. And the reason why everybody not everybody, but many, many people choose this piece.

Mitsuko Uchida31:43

Is

Mitsuko Uchida31:44

Quite simple because this piece is one of the last.

Mitsuko Uchida31:50

Major pieces of music that Schubert had composed. For me, these are the manifestations of his.

Mitsuko Uchida31:57

about his life, about his coming to terms with death.

Mitsuko Uchida32:02

I'm the C major quintet. It is not about coming to terms with death or life or whatever, suffering, no, none of the problems. That's all gone. If death were this, it would be so wonderful.

Presenter33:16

Part of the slow movement of Schubert's string quintet in C major, played by Isaac Stern, Alexander Schneider, Milton Catims, Pablo Casals, and Paul Tortellier.

Presenter33:26

As we've said, Mitzko, you're you're mistress of all Mozart compositions for the piano. You've recorded much of Schubert, De Bussy, Schoenberg.

Presenter33:34

What are your big musical ambitions? What composers, what pieces do you want to master still?

Mitsuko Uchida33:39

Well, everything and everybody, if possible. And I am struggling with Beethoven a lot at the moment. And I am dwelling in Schubert. But I have been dwelling in Schoenberg recently. And so but my

Mitsuko Uchida33:54

Ambition. One of the great ambitions of my life is when should I be allowed to turn seventy? You never know how long you live and so, but I am aiming at celebrating my seventieth birthday or the seventieth year with the forty-eight preludes and fugues of Johann Sebastian Bach. In a p in public. Yes, that I shall do in public. Yes, I hope so. Otherwise I play at home.

Presenter34:17

And otherwise.

Mitsuko Uchida34:21

Tell me about your last record.

Mitsuko Uchida34:23

So we are returning to the central issue.

Mitsuko Uchida34:26

which is again Johann Sebastian Bach. I wanted to take something that was some choral music, so I shall certainly take the St. John's passion.

Mitsuko Uchida34:37

Performed by the Ink Chamber Orchestra.

Mitsuko Uchida34:40

and conducted by Benjamin Britton.

Speaker 434:43

My dearest Saviour will turn.

Speaker 434:54

Smooth.

Speaker 434:59

Beautiful, windows, dearest savour, beautiful handsome.

Speaker 435:24

Yeah.

Speaker 435:28

As the horn crops its tongue

Presenter35:43

John Shirley Quirk singing My Dearest Saviour from Bach's and John Passion, with the Wandsworth Schoolboys' Choir and the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Britton. Now I normally would ask you now which one of those eight, but I think you've you've told us, haven't you, if you could only take one, it would be the public assembly.

Mitsuko Uchida35:58

It was probably it is going to be Pablo Cazars playing the cello suites.

Mitsuko Uchida36:04

Although I shall simply I shall cry that I'm not having a cigarette on me, for example. And everything else. You know you know what it took me not to take the unfinished symphony of Schubert. Oh, God. And everything else. There is so much

Mitsuko Uchida36:20

But there you are.

Presenter36:21

What about your book? You know we we give you the complete works of Shakespeare and we give you the bi

Mitsuko Uchida36:26

Bible too. Great. Now, you never know how long I'm going to be on the desert island.

Mitsuko Uchida36:31

So one compromise solution I found was that I would take one piece, Tolstoy, but in that double version, that ideal version that on the one side there is Russian, the other side is the perfect English translation, and by the end of several years on a desert island I shall have learnt Russian.

Mitsuko Uchida36:53

And can there be any doubt at all about what your luxury is? No, at none at all, because I was told firmly that pianos don't grow on those desert islands. So mine is always my piano.

Mitsuko Uchida37:05

Mitsku, Uchde. Thank you very much indeed.

Presenter37:07

Thank you for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Mitsuko Uchida37:09

Thank you. It was my pleasure.

Speaker 137:19

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.