It has taken until now for Mitsuko Uchida to lay down a recording of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. This colossal work, which grew out of a publisher’s request for one single variation on a fairly naff little tune, encapsulates so many of Beethoven’s contradictions – and Uchida, so adept at putting across music’s humour without diminishing its depth, is made for it.
Her playing conveys a keen sense of the music’s absurdities without exaggerating its quirks, gently raising an eyebrow at Beethoven’s passages of deliberate heavy-footedness and revealing that there is always a sincere, profound truth right behind them. It’s not so much that her sudden changes of inflection turn the music itself around, more that she lets us see through things to what’s waiting behind.
