From the elated dream to the bitter reality: to provide a proper rendering of Franz Schubert’s music, with its enormous range of expressions including all the intermediate tones, the instrument of choice must be the fortepiano, if only for its similitude to the pianos used during Schubert’s lifetime. The model used in the present recording is based on the grand piano of the Viennese master Conrad Graf, an instrument that Schubert himself owned. Its six pedals allow Schubert’s music to be played with multifaceted pliancy and depth. The skilful use of all these pedals, which in modern instruments have been reduced to two or three, opens up a multitude of sound facets, similar to doors that open up to a multitude of rooms, each decorated in its own particular way and with its own particular style.

Yasuyo Yano now lives in Switzerland where she teaches the piano, fortepiano and chamber music at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. She gives solo recitals and is also a chamber music performer, both on the fortepiano and the modern piano. Yasuyo Yano tells of her encounter with the fortepiano: “In Venice, in 2001, I played the complete Mozart sonatas for violin and piano together with the violinist Giuliano Carmignola. Andrea Marcon, another eminent Italian musician, told me after one of these concerts that I should consider playing fortepiano. I took his advice and I am today still thankful for it, because working with the fortepiano has opened up entirely new dimensions for me.”