Grand Pianis

Mitsuko Uchida strides onstage and sails into the classical piano literature as though the composer's ink had just dried. Schooled in Vienna, an S.R.O. attraction in London, where she lives, adored like a rock star in her native Japan, this Noh beauty may be the foremost Mozart specialist of today. Uchida gives the lie to the cliche that Oriental players of Western music are all pyrotechnics and no passion: with her electrifying presence and poetic intensity, she is emerging as a genuine superstar pianist. Her complete Mozart sonatas and concertos on Philips are best-sellers. Her recording of Chopin's kaleidoscopic second and third piano sonatas (to be released next month) is sublime.

CHARLES MICHENER