“It took years to understand that it is not enough to play the piano – it is a task for a lifetime, to understand how music really works. Also I was not so interested in the piano. I loved the opera. Oh my God, it was so great to be in Vienna is those days, and hear singers like Mirella Freni!” she says, looking up as if receiving a beatific vision. “In fact none of my musical gods were pianists. I loved the violinist Joseph Szigeti, when I heard his recordings of Mozart I was moved to tears. And the cellist Casals. The great piano God in Vienna at that time was Wilhelm Backhaus. I didn’t like him at all, but you couldn’t say that.”

When her father left Vienna, the 16-year-old Uchida stayed on alone to study. Courage is one thing she has never been short of, and that paradoxical combination of stubborn pride and humility, a quality she shares with one of her musical heroes, Arnold Schoenberg. Five years later Uchida won the Beethoven competition in Vienna, and six years later second prize at the Leeds competition.