One night this spring, a composition by Jörg Widmann made me cringe. Mitsuko Uchida was playing a program of Schoenberg, Schubert, and the 44-year-old German composer at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin. His piece, “Sonata facile” (2016), quoted the Mozart original extensively, interrupting it at times with modified dissonant bass lines, interjections of clusters at the extremes of the piano range, and “jazzy” glissandi. It added nothing, and violated the artist’s Hippocratic oath: Never make an existing piece worse. The provenance of the composition could hardly have been more prestigious. It was a joint commission by the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Carnegie Hall, and Uchida herself.
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