Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas are a gift for a pianist as adept at balancing the playful and the profound as Mitsuko Uchida. Each is potentially a work of astonishing individual impact, yet they can come together to form something even greater than the sum of their parts.

Perhaps it’s in the way that each sonata seems to pick up on and amplify the conflicts, beauties and struggles of the one before. Op 109 came to its close above a low rumble that Uchida made sound like an earthquake – Beethoven must have thought of sound as something to be felt as well as heard. When similar deep grumbles recurred in the first movement of Op 110 – gentler and unquiet this time, contrasting with tender chords above – they felt like a recollection. The forthright little fugue variation in Op 109 found its fully grown counterpart in the huge culmination of Op 110, and the peace that was so hard won at the end of Op 111 felt like a resolution of a whole evening’s music, not just one sonata.

Her Steinway sounding warm and mellow, Uchida was more generous with the sustaining pedal than some pianists, and set up some intriguing juxtapositions of mystery and decisiveness. In the slow waltz that forms the first variation of the Op 109 finale, she gave the imaginary dancers time to place their steps, but other than this she rarely lingered. The prevailing mood was of clarity and propulsive energy; perhaps when she recorded these sonatas nearly 20 years ago, she tackled the brief fast movements with more urgency, yet in this performance they still sounded dangerous and exhilarating.

Late in the second and final movement, Uchida reached a trill high up on the keyboard, and stretched it out until it seemed she might never move away; then the ending unfolded around it, leading to a peace that was cathartically hard won. At the very end, she held us in silence – then gave a little start and grinned as if she’d been having a game, seeing how long she could keep us enthralled. Naturally, she had won.