BBC Music Magazine
April 2024
Instrumental Choice

Sanae Yoshida (piano)

Buene: Studies (3) for Microtonal Piano
Harada: (Bai-Bai-Bai)
Maeland: Boiling Web
Magalhaes, M A: Snow Soul
Magalhaes, M A: Tecelagem
Gundersen, A: Microtonal Pieces

With this album, Sanae Yoshida presents five new solo works for the microtonal piano by composers Eivind Buene (N), Keiko Harada (J), Oyvind Maeland (N), Michelle Agnes Magalhaes (BR) and Andreas Gundersen (N). As a musical instrument the piano is, both literally and figuratively, black and white. A paradigm of discipline and order, carefully tuned such that all intervals between the notes are the same, and that all keys, major and minor, sound with an absolute maximum of consistent, consonant clarity. Regardless of what the piano may look like, and how it might have been designed, arranged and built, for many composers an instrument is less a full stop than a question mark, a collection of materials that have the potential to constitute a panoply of multicoloured technical possibilities.

Beyond the black and white, beyond shades of grey, beyond even multicolour, the music on this album utilises microtones and other techniques to enable journeys into musical realms that lie far outside the piano's usual territory. It questions, and makes us question, what the piano really is, what its nature is like, what its capabilities are, what its limits might be. They do this through experiment and play, but also through personal reflection and expression, offering insights into both the heart of music as well as the human spirit.

Sanae Yoshida is an Oslo-based pianist performing both contemporary and classical repertoire, both as a solo and chamber/ensemble musician. She has been working closely with a number of composers and has premiered a large number of works.