Mitsuko Uchida's career has been built on the greatest music of the past: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Debussy, and the composers of the Second Viennese School, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, for whom she has deep respect and affection. She has also engaged with some of the mightiest music of our own time, being particularly proud of her association with Harrison Birtwistle.

Among her most significant recordings - Mozart excepted - are Debussy's Etudes, the complete Beethoven Concertos with conductor Kurt Sanderling, the Schoenberg concerto with Pierre Boulez, and, at last, the complete sonatas of the composer dearest to her heart, Franz Schubert. The Schubert series, embracing the Impromptus and Moments Musicaux, was completed in 2002. In the concert hall she has returned to Mozart, and is at work on a concerto series with the Cleveland Orchestra, which extends until May 2007. When that ends, she says she will take a year's sabbatical.

But before then she is engaged on her own Carnegie Hall series (which finished last season); nine events built on the title 'The Second Viennese School Revisited', plus a bonus concert outside the main theme. Uchida will be bringing these programmes to Europe in the 2005/06 season. She jokes that the series ought to be called: '"Yet again Mitsuko wants to play the Second Viennese School - can't she stick to Mozart and Schubert?" But in fact I'm wrapping up the Second Viennese School very nicely with Mozart and Beethoven and Schubert.'

The blend of respect and affection that Uchida commands from the public is unique to her, but neither adulation nor the demands on her time will be allowed to disrupt that 'perfect balance' she has always cultivated.

You can practise as much as you like. You can study as much as you like, work as much as you like, think as much as you like at home. But exposure is dangerous. There are plenty of examples of people who have become addicted to exposure, musicians and otherwise. Exposure, power and money go hand in hand and are peculiarly dangerous and addictive.

I understood completely one day I was not going to be the most highly paid musician. I was not going to be the most famous. I was not going to cash in or play as much as possible. I wanted to keep my life my own and not be a great unhappy pianist. I need time to myself to relax. If you keep the balance right, nothing is better than a musician's life. Sometimes I'm asked if I would pay to give concerts, and I would - but instead they pay me. Aren't I lucky!

Interview by Brian Hunt