On track: Spirituality unlocks mysteries of sonatas

The cover, taken from Mitsuko Uchida's 2004 sessions with the late Richard Avedon, is eye-catching. The pianist gives us her own soignee and muted take on Edvard Munch's The Scream.

After delivering definitive recordings of the Mozart and Schubert Sonatas, the Japanese pianist turns to Beethoven with his last three pieces in this genre.

The Sonatas of Opus 109-111 are an immense challenge. Notes can feel awkward under fingers; sonorities are idiosyncratic; there are unpredictable swings of mood and style - one contemporary review likened them to a magnificent artistic garden, with paths that suddenly change direction.

Uchida imbues them with a naturalness that has us following every twist and turn, although this is more than mere musical orienteering. There is a deep spiritual resonance here, as one might expect from a woman who, in the booklet essay, investigates the inner bonds from sonata to sonata. Themes are quoted and conclusions are drawn.

"When you perform them in one sweep something extraordinary and mysterious happens to the music," she writes. "Together they represent a long journey. Ending in silence."

Few pianists are as sensitive as Uchida to the weight of a note or the shaping of a phrase, and you hear it in the first lines of the E major Sonata. The great adagio of the A flat Sonata, one of Beethoven's more tortuous pathways, unfolds with its own blend of logic and magic.

It would difficult to imagine anyone who more successfully catches what Claudio Arrau once described as "a marvellous ascent to a mystical ecstasy" in the Variations of the final Sonata.

There are unexpected touches. The fugues of Opus 110 steal upon our consciousness; the opening of Opus 111 looks back to Mozart as well as forward to Liszt.

The sheer swing with which she launches into this sonata's "l'istesso tempo" section recalls the brio and passion of the first movement's allegro.

The Philips recording, made at Snape Maltings, is simply perfection.

Uchida has fierce competition. Apart from the classic Rosen and Pollini, there was the brilliant Freddy Kempff set on BIS in 2001. In my books, Uchida transcends them all.

* Mitsuko Uchida, Beethoven Piano Sonatas (Philips 475 6935)