Japanese Composers

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

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vandermolen

Quote from: Greg on April 02, 2015, 07:32:20 AM
If you screenshot them, I could translate.  ;)
How very kind! Do you mean send you a scan of them? I don't know what is meant by screenshot. It would be a lot of work and I am reluctant to do that as I am sure that I can find some info online. Thanks so much for the very kind offer.  :)
"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).

ibanezmonster

Quote from: vandermolen on April 03, 2015, 01:46:10 AM
How very kind! Do you mean send you a scan of them? I don't know what is meant by screenshot. It would be a lot of work and I am reluctant to do that as I am sure that I can find some info online. Thanks so much for the very kind offer.  :)
You're right, scan is what I meant. Hope you find the info. But if not and you change your mind, I'll still do it. It would be good practice.  8)

vandermolen

Quote from: Greg on April 03, 2015, 06:36:03 AM
You're right, scan is what I meant. Hope you find the info. But if not and you change your mind, I'll still do it. It would be good practice.  8)
VMT (very many thanks).  :)
"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).

Jaakko Keskinen

"Javert, though frightful, had nothing ignoble about him. Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the sense of duty, are things which may become hideous when wrongly directed; but which, even when hideous, remain grand."

- Victor Hugo

snyprrr

Ichiyanagi
Nishimura
Taira

Yoshimatsu
Satoh

M. Ishii


Can someone pleeease direct me to the more AvantGarde of this Thread (not limited to the above)?  I thought it was the first three above. I believe the more Conservative ones are:

Yashiro
both of the "Matsudaira Matsumuru Matsa... I get them confused)
Mayuzumi
Ikebe
Ifukube

along with Yoshimatsu and Satoh, though, like Takemitsu, they are still "Modern"...



I seem to like Ishii and Nishimura... wondering about Ichiyanagi...

Mahlerian

Toshio Hosokawa is on the avant-garde side as well, and there have been a few discs of his released on Naxos.  The chamber works I've heard by him are better, though.  I find Yoshimatsu's music irritatingly cloying.

I don't understand any way in which Takemitsu's music is not modernist, unlike Ifukube or Yoshimatsu...
"l do not consider my music as atonal, but rather as non-tonal. I feel the unity of all keys. Atonal music by modern composers admits of no key at all, no feeling of any definite center." - Arnold Schoenberg

Spineur

Hikaru Hayashi Highly recommended

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikaru_Hayashi

I have this recording of his viola concerto (a beauty)

The last composer on this CD Tan Dun, is a (skippable ?) chinese composer


Spineur

Hikaru Hayashi composed nearly 30 operas.  His most performed one are

    • Opera Gauche the Cellist (based on the novel by Kenji Miyazawa)
    • Opera Dvenadtsat' mesyatsev (based on the novel by Samuil Marshak)
    • Opera Metamorphosis (based on the novel by Franz Kafka)
    • Opera I Am a Cat (based on the novel by Soseki Natsume)
    • Opera Three Sisters (based on the novel by Anton P. Chekhov)
    • Opera Inu no Adauchi (based on the novel by Hisashi Inoue)
    • Opera Last Adventure of Don Quixote (based on the novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)
    • Opera Romeo and Juliet (based on the novel by William Shakespeare)

Unfortunately, I have not seen a single one.  Gauche the Cellist, is an opera for children was performed at the Avignon festival and received several awards.  There is apparently a Denon CD (DENON COCO 78565b) although I havent seen it anywhere.  There is an NHK recording of Esugata Nyobo.  No idea how one could get a hold of it.

snyprrr

Quote from: Mahlerian on October 29, 2016, 09:13:16 AM
I don't understand any way in which Takemitsu's music is not modernist, unlike Ifukube or Yoshimatsu...

I like some Hosokawa, but I'm "done with him" for the moment, that's why he wasn't on the list. Yea, I was sampling some Yoshimatsu (I remember when he first "came out" with that very first Chandos release, and we were all like, meh.

Yes, I don't know why i said that comment above

Quote from: Spineur on October 29, 2016, 09:32:42 AM
Hikaru Hayashi Highly recommended

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikaru_Hayashi

I have this recording of his viola concerto (a beauty)

The last composer on this CD Tan Dun, is a (skippable ?) chinese composer



Tan Dun, yes. I like to skip him now.

Thanks for the recommend

nathanb

Quote from: snyprrr on October 29, 2016, 09:05:52 AM
Ichiyanagi
Nishimura
Taira

Yoshimatsu
Satoh

M. Ishii


Can someone pleeease direct me to the more AvantGarde of this Thread (not limited to the above)?  I thought it was the first three above. I believe the more Conservative ones are:

Yashiro
both of the "Matsudaira Matsumuru Matsa... I get them confused)
Mayuzumi
Ikebe
Ifukube

along with Yoshimatsu and Satoh, though, like Takemitsu, they are still "Modern"...



I seem to like Ishii and Nishimura... wondering about Ichiyanagi...

Keep trying with Ishii, Nishimura, and Ichiyanagi.

Add Yuasa, Fujikura, Mochizuki, and Harada at the least.

I suppose it's best not to go down the debatable rabbit hole of Onkyo.

ComposerOfAvantGarde

Quote from: nathanb on October 29, 2016, 07:24:03 PM
Keep trying with Ishii, Nishimura, and Ichiyanagi.

Add Yuasa, Fujikura, Mochizuki, and Harada at the least.

I suppose it's best not to go down the debatable rabbit hole of Onkyo.
Yeah Fujikura is great and seems really really active with heaps of brilliant stuff uploaded to his YouTube channel, I have only heard some Mochizuki once enjoyed what I heard............I should revisit once I am over my Mahler 7 phase as well as check the others out.


snyprrr

Quote from: nathanb on October 29, 2016, 07:24:03 PM
Keep trying with Ishii, Nishimura, and Ichiyanagi.

Add Yuasa, Fujikura, Mochizuki, and Harada at the least.

I suppose it's best not to go down the debatable rabbit hole of Onkyo.

Do you have the Ishii on Denon with his 'Afro-Concerto'? 

Anyhow, yea, thanks for the confirmations. Does Ichiyanagi have a "big piece" to start with? Nishimura seems to be the current choice for mind blowing- all I have is that very good Arditti disc, but he has quite a bit on Camerata, wouldn't know where to begin.

what's Onkyo?

and I guess we're not gonna bring Merzbow into the discussion- at least I don't need him to be brought into THIS discussion...

nathanb

Quote from: snyprrr on October 30, 2016, 09:43:34 AM
Do you have the Ishii on Denon with his 'Afro-Concerto'? 

Anyhow, yea, thanks for the confirmations. Does Ichiyanagi have a "big piece" to start with? Nishimura seems to be the current choice for mind blowing- all I have is that very good Arditti disc, but he has quite a bit on Camerata, wouldn't know where to begin.

what's Onkyo?

and I guess we're not gonna bring Merzbow into the discussion- at least I don't need him to be brought into THIS discussion...

If you don't want to bring up Merzbow, then you won't want to bring up Onkyo ;) It's essentially a subgenre nickname for Japan's legendary found sound / EAI scene. Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, Toshimaru Nakamura, Taku Sugimoto, and so on. The kind of stuff you'd expect from a 21st century AMM.

I guess the Ichiyanagi pieces I see most are his piano pieces associated with David Tudor. Some cool extended techniques there. And Extended Voices and electroacoustic stuff like that.

Leggiero

#153
My ramblings-on about Ohki's Hiroshima Symphony can be found here: https://leggierosite.wordpress.com/2016/11/07/modernism-by-necessity-depicting-the-unimaginable/

[For anyone who may have happened across a near-identical post to this on another forum, yes, I'm shamelessly repeating myself in the hope of generating further discussion!]

Mirror Image

Quote from: Leggiero on November 25, 2016, 04:07:42 AM
My ramblings-on about Ohki's Hiroshima Symphony can be found here: https://leggierosite.wordpress.com/2016/11/07/modernism-by-necessity-depicting-the-unimaginable/

[For anyone who may have happened across a near-identical post to this on another forum, yes, I'm shamelessly repeating myself in the hope of generating further discussion!]

I need to re-listen to that Ohki work. I recall liking his Hiroshima Symphony. In fact, I'm extremely grateful for that Naxos Japanese series to begin with. So much from that series I had never heard previously.

milk




Someone must have posted these before? Good stuff!

Leggiero

Quote from: Mirror Image on November 27, 2016, 05:39:30 AM
I need to re-listen to that Ohki work. I recall liking his Hiroshima Symphony. In fact, I'm extremely grateful for that Naxos Japanese series to begin with. So much from that series I had never heard previously.

It truly is a remarkable work, which makes me yearn to hear more Ohki (although you're right, even to have what we do is wonderful)!

Mirror Image

Quote from: Leggiero on November 27, 2016, 10:46:05 AM
It truly is a remarkable work, which makes me yearn to hear more Ohki (although you're right, even to have what we do is wonderful)!

Indeed. I wish Naxos would continue this series and record more works from these composers like Ohki and, for that matter, Mayuzumi and Akutagawa as well.

SymphonicAddict

#158
Just I was playing the Prima Sinfonia by Yasushi Akutagawa. I had never heard a note from this composer till now. My impressions about it are more than positive. I wasn't prepared for such an overwhelming work. Russian influences are clearly perceived, and there is a strikingly similar passage in the beginning of the 4th movement that will surely bring to your mind a very famous Russian symphony. It's featured by dramatic episodes full of tension and epic struggle. I felt it especially gripping in the 3rd movement (Chorale). Suspense aplenty. I can't recommend it enough. A very powerful work with a fierce ending.

Granted, it may be a bit derivative, but it shouldn't be an impediment to enjoy such a blaze of a piece. Terrific discovery. Here it is the recording I listened to. It was conducted by the composer himself. The atmosphere of the recording makes it even more special.

http://www.youtube.com/v/G84bQfQQ-WM&t=31s

vandermolen

#159
Quote from: SymphonicAddict on August 13, 2019, 06:07:41 PM
Just I was playing the Prima Sinfonia by Yasushi Akutagawa. I had never heard a note from this composer till now. My impressions about it are more than positive. I wasn't prepared for such an overwhelming work. Russian influences are clearly perceived, and there is a strikingly similar passage in the beginning of the 4th movement that will surely bring to your mind a very famous Russian symphony. It's featured by dramatic episodes full of tension and epic struggle. I felt it especially gripping in the 3rd movement (Chorale). Suspense aplenty. I can't recommend it enough. A very powerful work with a fierce ending.

Granted, it may be a bit derivative, but it shouldn't be an impediment to enjoy such a blaze of a piece. Terrific discovery. Here it is the recording I listened to. It was conducted by the composer himself. The atmosphere of the recording makes it even more special.

http://www.youtube.com/v/G84bQfQQ-WM&t=31s
This sounds most interesting Cesar and right up my street. I do have a CD of his music on Naxos with the 'Ellora Symphony' but can't remember anything about it. Clearly I need to revisit that disc and search out Prima Sinfonia which, having sampled the first few minutes, sounds great. 'Epic struggle' sounds good to me. I may have asked you before but do you know Moroi's Third Symphony which is my favourite CD in that Naxos Japanese series along with Hayasaka's Piano Concerto? Thanks for posting this.

Added later:
I've just listened to the whole symphony whilst having a bath (too much information  :o). It really is very good indeed and my attention was gripped throughout. What a discovery! The relentless tread and epic qualities of the slow movement remind me, in a way, of the Epilogue of Vaughan Williams's 6th Symphony, although much louder of course. I must say that the abrupt change of atmosphere at the start of the last movement came as a jolt, especially as it then seems to morph, as you suggest, into a much better known Soviet 5th symphony. In this sense it reminded me of the incongruously perky second (last) movement of Hayasaka's Piano Concerto, which I simply wish wasn't there. However, by the end of the Akutagawa 1st Symphony I was convinced and will be listening to this again soon. There are some lovely poetic sections featuring the harp and the synthesis or at least juxtaposition of Eastern and Western influence reminded me of the Moroi and Hayasaka works as well as Avshalomov's 1st Symphony.
"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).