Debussy's Corner

Started by Kullervo, December 19, 2007, 05:47:00 PM

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milk

Quote from: Mandryka on April 15, 2023, 11:52:46 PMThere must be a book on the way Western classical music was taken up by Japanese performers and composers. One thing that's interesting is that it was all one way as far as I can see - not many western performers are playing Japanese music.
I know there's Takemitsu. Is there really so much more in the classical tradition? I mean I'm certain I've missed a few. But I think audiences in Japan expect pretty middle of the road repertoire anyway: Mozart, Chopin, etc., so it's not exactly a nurturing scene for budding Japanese composers.
I like that album by Sarah Cahill of the Japanese composer Fujieda. It's modern stuff. He hooked up biofeedback to plants and turned into music supposedly. But it just sounds like simplified baroque with no development. Minimalist baroque. Sorry, I digress.

Luke

In this respect the phenomenon of the 'kejishoku' - the enormous impression on young Japanese composers made by John Cage and David Tudor on their Japanese tour is worth considering.

Mandryka

Quote from: milk on April 16, 2023, 03:02:49 AMI know there's Takemitsu. Is there really so much more in the classical tradition? I mean I'm certain I've missed a few. But I think audiences in Japan expect pretty middle of the road repertoire anyway: Mozart, Chopin, etc., so it's not exactly a nurturing scene for budding Japanese composers.
I like that album by Sarah Cahill of the Japanese composer Fujieda. It's modern stuff. He hooked up biofeedback to plants and turned into music supposedly. But it just sounds like simplified baroque with no development. Minimalist baroque. Sorry, I digress.

Akahira Nashimura, Jo Kondo, Toshio Hosokawa, Misato Mochizuki, Yoshi Wada, Mamoru Fujieda . . .

 
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Quote from: Luke on April 16, 2023, 03:23:02 AMIn this respect the phenomenon of the 'kejishoku' - the enormous impression on young Japanese composers made by John Cage and David Tudor on their Japanese tour is worth considering.

But where does it come out in the compositions?  In Jo Kondo, I can hear it maybe. But where else?
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Quote from: milk on April 16, 2023, 03:02:49 AMI know there's Takemitsu. Is there really so much more in the classical tradition? I mean I'm certain I've missed a few. But I think audiences in Japan expect pretty middle of the road repertoire anyway: Mozart, Chopin, etc., so it's not exactly a nurturing scene for budding Japanese composers.
I like that album by Sarah Cahill of the Japanese composer Fujieda. It's modern stuff. He hooked up biofeedback to plants and turned into music supposedly. But it just sounds like simplified baroque with no development. Minimalist baroque. Sorry, I digress.

Just a point about this.  Japanese musicians are doing some of the least "middle of the road" western early music making. And yet, when you read their CVs, they've all of them studied not with "oriental" masters but in Ansterdam and Basel!
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Ladies and gents, thank you for your interests. In case, the below are YT lists of Chieko Hara and Kiyoko Tanaka - another student of Lazare Levy at Conservatoire de Paris. Chieko Hara plays Chopin too, but I think her Debussy sounds better.


https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7uG3nzjmyOBURMGakqBmpMnodjDn_MdL

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7uG3nzjmyODbcMZMg-ZlQvtSeYtxVXhH


Iota

Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on April 15, 2023, 08:18:57 PMChieko Hara - another Japanese student of Lazare Levy and Alfred Cortot in Paris.




Thanks for posting this. Interesting pianist whom I'd never heard of. I've been enjoying her Chopin PC 1 on youtube that you've also posted above. Will take a look at the second link later.

Mandryka

#747
Quote from: Mandryka on April 16, 2023, 05:08:55 AMJust a point about this.  Japanese musicians are doing some of the least "middle of the road" western early music making. And yet, when you read their CVs, they've all of them studied not with "oriental" masters but in Ansterdam and Basel!

Here's a doctorate on Lazare Levy and the Japanese cultural engagement with the West which may be interesting (in French)

https://theses.hal.science/tel-03828314v1/document
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

#748
Lazare-Levy, the mentor of Clara Haskil, Monique Haas, Chieko Hara, Kazuko Yasukawa, Katsuhisa Nobechi etc.
During WWII, the Japanese pupils lived in Imperial Japan while Lazare-Levy was a Jew in the occupied France.
They maintained a good relationship and LL was invited to Japan in 1950.


Dry Brett Kavanaugh


George

Quote from: kyjo on May 22, 2018, 07:52:28 PMA fantastic recent discovery of mine was Debussy's early-ish Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra. Why isn't this work played/discussed more often? It's absolutely gorgeous!

I agree!

Which recordings do people like for this work? I have only heard Ciccolini/Martinon.
"I can't live without music, because music is life." - Yvonne Lefébure

atardecer

#751
Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on December 02, 2022, 07:34:22 AMDebussy was music. Scriabin, something else, beyond. Quasi-synesthesia.

Scriabin seems to have quite a following among pianists lately, I think his popularity is increasing. I suspect the similarities his music has with the music of Chopin is part of the reason. He sounds to me somewhat like a modern Chopin with more dissonance and jazzy harmonies. 

Quote from: Mandryka on December 01, 2022, 11:39:37 PMPresent the music as a suggestion of something ineffable which lies behind the real, rather than as a picture of the real.

This aligns somewhat with Cortot's thoughts on performing Debussy, and perhaps is where the idea originated. Cortot stated Debussy's music suggests the 'invisible in nature' and 'the indefinable that sings and vibrates under the appearance of things and beings.'
"In this metallic age of barbarians, only a relentless cultivation of our ability to dream, to analyze and to captivate can prevent our personality from degenerating into nothing or else into a personality like all the rest." - Fernando Pessoa

Pohjolas Daughter

This is a lovely version of the Fantaisie.  This is the first movement.  You can listen to the other ones by clicking on the topic--Anne Queffélec.  I'm not familiar with the Ciccolini/Martinon version.


Piano: Anne Queffélec
Conductor: Armin Jordan
Orchestra: Orchestre National de l'Opéra de Monte-Carlo
Composer: Claude Debussy

PD
Pohjolas Daughter