Japanese Composers

Started by vandermolen, February 23, 2008, 12:32:40 AM

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T. D.

Quote from: milk on October 27, 2020, 07:16:50 PM
I was listening to this today and thinking this would be interesting on harpsichord. Actually, it's not super profound music, to my ears, but it's pleasant and achieves something of value.
My idea was that a baroque keyboardist could add ornamentation and more interesting rubato and make something pseudo-baroque.

I have the 2 original Patterns of Plants discs on Tzadik and enjoy them. But I never considered the piano version. I found microtonality a big part of the instrumental versions' appeal and didn't see how that could carry over to the piano works.

Symphonic Addict

Quote from: vers la flamme on March 13, 2021, 03:26:33 AM
The blurb on the back of the disc calls Moroi "the greatest Japanese symphonist". Sounds like something I should hear.

Akira Ifukube was a more interesting composer IMO. His only symphony is rather good.
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Quote from: Symphonic Addict on March 13, 2021, 08:22:01 AM
Akira Ifukube was a more interesting composer IMO. His only symphony is rather good.

His music for Godzilla is pretty good as well.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0A9A184BE549A4C3

vandermolen

Quote from: vers la flamme on March 13, 2021, 03:26:33 AM
The blurb on the back of the disc calls Moroi "the greatest Japanese symphonist". Sounds like something I should hear.
Yes, you should!
:)
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

T. D.


Roy Bland

#205
I suggest this:
https://arksquare.net/detail.php?cdno=3SCD-0055

I have Akutagawa on Toshiba and the sound isn't too much good

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

#206
Quote from: vers la flamme on October 17, 2020, 02:55:41 PM
I'm listening to Kôsçak Yamada's Symphony in F major, "Triumph & Peace", in an effort to hear more Japanese classical music. It's available to listen here...:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY7He5w_5cY

Sounds great to my ears! Very melodic. Yamada was the first major Japanese composer of Western music and it appears he wrote in a style that is very reverent of the old masters.

Anyway, I have this Naxos disc w/ Takuo Yuasa, and it looks like there is one more Naxos disc from the same forces, but other than that, I can't find any other Yamada music on disc. Anyone know of anything else? Looks like he was quite prolific!


Symphonic Poem "Oyasama", Kosaku Yamada.

https://youtu.be/Xzg8nlFM2tc


Ed. One more. Prelude D major, composed when he was 26 y/o.

https://youtu.be/1d_9yRe4b4k

Symphonic Addict

Some pieces by Japanese composers are heavily influenced by occidental techniques sounding more like European/American compositions than properly Japanese. This is not the case about Hirooki Ogawa's Symphony 'Castle of Japan' (1968), or at least one can recognize elements that make it sound as music from that Asian nation in a larger extent than anything by western composers and the result is decidedly succesful, largely due to the incorporation of Japanese folk instruments (it also includes a chorus participating in the 4th and 5th movements). John (Mirror Image) recommended me this piece when he was active on this forum (needless to say I miss his contributions) and today I confirmed what fabulous it is: rhythmically driven, vigorous, atmospheric and poetic. The titles of its five movements suggest an aptly descriptive and engaging symphony [Ki (Castle Building), The Castle of Lord of Heaven, Fighting Castle, Castle in Flames and Immortal Castle]. Along with Ifukube's Sinfonia Tapkaara and Moroi's Symphony No. 3, one of the strongest Japanese symphonies known to me.

Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Roy Bland

#208
A request i've Akutagawa First on old cd Fontec coupled with trinita sinfonica.Is there an alternate version of this or a better mastering ? sound is quite bad

Dry Brett Kavanaugh



Dry Brett Kavanaugh

#211
Quote from: Symphonic Addict on November 14, 2023, 07:01:12 PMSome pieces by Japanese composers are heavily influenced by occidental techniques sounding more like European/American compositions than properly Japanese.




Because until recently, the conservatories and academics in Japan exclusively focused on Western music with a contempt towards Japanese traditional music and music in Asia. For instance, when Akira Ifukube sent his first orchestral piece, Japanese Rhapsody, to a Japanese conservatory for the international competition organized by Alexander Tcherepnin, many Japanese academics said that they should reject the work. They thought that Ifukube's work with the traditional folk influences were embarrassing the country and the western people would think that Japanese composers were uneducated. Eventually the academics reluctantly sent Ifukube's work to Paris as they were not judges of the competition and they mainly worked on receiving works from Japanese composers.  Funny thing is that later the judges of that contest— Albert Roussel, Jacques Ibert, Arthur Honegger, et al.- unanimously selected Ifukube's work as the winner. Even today, the music of very few Japanese composers are influenced by traditional Japanese music,  as you say.



Roy Bland


vandermolen

There are my two favourite recordings in the Naxos Japanese Composers series - especially the long opening movement of Hayasaka's Piano Concerto and for Moroi's 3rd Symphony, both of which I find very moving.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).