Kate Wakeling welcomes Sanae Yoshida’s foray into microtonal music
INSTRUMENTAL CHOICE
My Microtonal Piano
Works by Eivind Buene, Andreas Gundersen, Keiko Harada, Oyvind Maeland, Michelle Agnes Magalhaes
Sanae Yoshida (piano)
Lawo LWC1273 63:03 mins
This fascinating recording project takes us on a beguiling journey through the world of microtonality. Pianist Sanae Yoshida defines the ‘microtonal piano’ as a piano which includes intervals not found in the standard 12-tone scale, whether this be through de-tuning, string harmonics/preparations or ‘other microtonal modes of playing’. She’s commissioned five composers to explore it and the results prove intriguing and arresting, while Yoshida’s commitment shines in her poised, imaginative playing.
Of the five works featured, perhaps the most accessible is Eivind Buene’s Three Studies for Microtonal Piano. Buene took as his starting point three Schubert piano sonatas, which he then fragmented and re-imagined. The effect is at once magical and disconcerting: Schubert’s familiar musical gestures are transformed into something profoundly otherworldly. Several of the works conjure not dissimilar stark, spare soundscapes, including Andreas Gundersen’s hypnotic Microtonal Pieces and Michelle Agnes Magalhaes’s Snow Soul – where the piano strings are plucked and strummed to produce something like the sound of a harp.
The playful, jazz-infused Boiling Web by Øyvind Mæland provides a welcome contrast, and draws particularly on the piano’s percussive possibilities. But perhaps the most mesmerising of the works is 唄-媒-培 (BAI-BAI-BAI) by Keiko Harada. In music of wonderous strangeness, the most unlikely of sounds fizz and shimmer before erupting with violent force.
This is a disc of terrific imagination and daring, and Yoshida deserves every commendation.
PERFORMANCE
RECORDING
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Bruckner
Symphony No. 9 (transcription)
Hansjörg Albrecht (organ)
Oehms OC485 101:32 mins (2 discs)
To judge from contemporary reports, Bruckner must have been one of the greatest organists of all time. Yet he set down only a few minor organ works, concentrating instead on choral music and the symphony. A tradition has now evolved of organ transcriptions of Bruckner’s orchestral works, such as Erwin Horn’s version of the Ninth
