After having come to London I wanted to shake off all that was Japanese or Viennese in my musical expression. This made for a very difficult, though rewarding, five or six years.

She was financially independent from the age of 24, but it was not until she was 30 that she was able to make a comfortable living from music.

People tell you that life gets more difficult for young musicians every day. Not true. In those days it was already very difficult.

One day things became easier - but it had been a gradual process. I wanted to do something significant. I thought: either Mozart complete piano sonatas or Schubert complete piano sonatas. At that time Alfred Brendel was very associated with Schubert in London. But nobody that I could see was playing the Mozart sonatas. And that is the only reason this association with Mozart came about.

Uchida's 1982 recital series of Mozart sonatas at Wigmore Hall made her name in London.

Her international reputation was also founded on Mozart, through recordings of the complete sonatas and then the piano concertos. Once again Schubert had been in the frame, but her record producer at Philips, Erik Smith, consulted the company's Japanese branch, who thought Mozart would sell much better there. Each time a Mozart recording was made, Uchida and Smith expected to turn next to Schubert, but the commercial and critical success of the discs persuaded them to return to Mozart.

So we were saying to each other all the time, "Sorry about this," and that's how the famous Mozart series was done. Apologetically.

Right from the start, I decided I would record only those pieces that, on my deathbed, I might regret never having recorded. In today's world, you are pushed towards crossover. Even then people thought about it. I heard rumours that someone in the record company - not Erik - thought, wouldn't a CD called "Mitsuko plays the Minute Waltz' sell well?" And somebody else is supposed to have replied "You ask her. I am not going to take the blast from her." And whoever it was never dared ask.

A year after I'd finished playing the concertos in London, I sat down with my agent who said the easiest way to sell me is to attach the Mozart label to me - and however wonderful Mozart is, if I wanted to do something else, I had to do it then. So I diversified my repertoire. That was the best decision I ever made. You cannot spend your life with one composer. If I had been stuck there my Mozart would have deteriorated by the minute and my playing of other composers would be equally bad.

Interview by Brian Hunt