Schubert Impromptus D899
Beethoven 33 Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli

The great Japanese-born pianist Mitsuko Uchida calls Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations ‘one of the greatest piano pieces ever written’. With its fearsome technical challenges and its remarkable breadth of emotion from the humorous to the visionary, as the composer transforms a simple waltz into ever more inventive and profounder music, it draws on the piercing clarity and poetic sensitivity of Uchida’s playing, alongside her mesmerising intensity. She opens her Festival recital with the poignant poetry of Schubert’s four sparkling Impromptus, D899.