Mitsuko Uchida was born in Atami, near Tokyo, on 20 December 1948, youngest of three children, and moved to Vienna at twelve when her diplomat father was named ambassador to Austria. She enrolled at the Vienna Academy under Richard Hauser, and has spent her career between the Austro-German repertoire and an adopted England, where she was made a Dame in 2009. With Jonathan Biss she co-directs the Marlboro Music School and Festival, and she has latterly conducted several major orchestras from the keyboard.

Uchida’s Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert are among the most closely argued on record — playing of analytic clarity delivered with a singer’s rubato — and her complete Mozart sonatas and concertos remain reference points a listener will meet repeatedly when comparing recordings here. Her honours span the catalogue’s major awards, and her Schoenberg and Berg recordings extend the same lucidity into the Second Viennese School.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsuko_Uchida
• https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q238290