On the eve of her 26th birthday, pianist Ayako Uehara had already achieved some pretty stunning "firsts," the most impressive of which is the fact that she was the first Japanese artist to win the Gold Medal at the 2002 International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow. EMI's Tchaikovsky -- Mussorgsky is the first recorded evidence of Uehara's playing to be made available in the West, a Toshiba-EMI disc devoted to Tchaikovsky's solo piano music having preceded it. Uehara has an extremely light touch, a faculty that the ...
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On the eve of her 26th birthday, pianist Ayako Uehara had already achieved some pretty stunning "firsts," the most impressive of which is the fact that she was the first Japanese artist to win the Gold Medal at the 2002 International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow. EMI's Tchaikovsky -- Mussorgsky is the first recorded evidence of Uehara's playing to be made available in the West, a Toshiba-EMI disc devoted to Tchaikovsky's solo piano music having preceded it. Uehara has an extremely light touch, a faculty that the EMI annotator attributes to her small stature and light weight, but one other strength not elucidated in these notes is her speed, which is truly impressive. You would have to go back in history quite a way to find another pianist who plays the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with as feathery, and as rapid, a touch as Uehara does here. Speaking of feathers, one belongs in the cap of conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos -- the orchestral compliment, rather heavily scored by...
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