Mitsuko Uchida, St George's, Bristol

Mitsuko Uchida's recital was constructed with the imagination and insight typical of her understated yet utterly compelling approach. In the same way that she combines a quietly radiant presence with a bubbling, irrepressible energy, she seems to seek the balance that lies in opposites.

This was nowhere more revealing than in her juxtaposition of tiny gems from György Kurtág's series, Játékok, meaning Games, with pieces by JS Bach. Antiphone in F sharp, which quickly established the exquisite economy of Kurtág's utterances, was followed by the Contrapunctus I from Bach's Art of Fugue, with Kurtág's Tumble-Bunny hot on its heels. Uchida's original sequence had included Hommage à Schubert but, as she explained, the fastidious Kurtág had not approved, preferring her alternative choice, Hommage à Christian Wolff. The latter certainly served to distil the atmosphere so that Bach's Sarabande from the French Suite No 5 in G attained an ineffable serenity.

Then, out of the dying cadence emerged Kurtág's Play With Infinity, at first ethereally high and weightless, then slowly moving down keyboard as though gently guided by gravity.

Uchida had already touched on the sublime in Schubert's C minor Sonata, D958, where moments of gossamer pianissimo had been the logical counterbalance to the extremes of explosive force of its opening toccata-like chords and the headlong rush of its finale. Schumann's Symphonic Variations were even more convincing.

For all the masterly virtuosity of these two massive works, it was the Bach Sarabande that stood out, but Uchida matched its transcendent beauty in her encore, the Andante from Mozart's Sonata in C, K330. In such moments, this extraordinary pianist touches on the essence of things.