five Japanese symphonies

[calimac]

I spent much of yesterday typing up what proved to be 5500 words of notes from the Stanford music symposium I'd attended. And as I did it I listened to recordings of - you guessed it - five Japanese symphonies.

Where did they come from? They came from New Haven, Connecticut. gerisullivan and kip_w and I browsed in a used bookstore/cafe which also had a rack of CDs, and the classical shelf contained about a dozen Naxos recordings of Japanese music in the western classical mode. Naxos sure issues a lot more stuff than you normally see in the racks. I'd heard of a few of the composers, so I came back a couple days later to read the booklets and choose the ones I thought I'd like.

And I came away with five CDs, each of them with one symphony and various other orchestral works by a single composer. After initial listening to each, here's my report:

Koscak Yamada (1886-1965): Symphony in F "Triumph and Peace" (1912)
This symphony and an overture of the same year also on the disc were, it says here, the first works for western orchestra ever composed in Japan. My god, are they ever mediocre. They have the vapid sweetness of a thousand other deservedly forgotten sub-Mendelssohn composers. No character at all. But the very next year Yamada composed two symphonic poems, also on the disc, that are colorful and atmospheric and would have done great credit to Liadov.

Qunihico Hashimoto (1904-1949): Symphony No. 1 in D (1940)
This symphony was written for the big celebration of the notional 2600th anniversary of the Empire, right at the height of Japanese nationalism, so it ought to creep me out. But I'm just here to listen to the music. Hey, they also commissioned some western works - including Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem, which the Japanese sent back with a big "Huh? This is supposed to be a happy occasion." Anyway, Hashimoto wrote a happy symphony. The first movement is broad and formal, the finale grand and rising, but the real winner is the scherzo in between. A sinuous folk tune from Okinawa gets played over and over in a variety of imaginative orchestrations, and it just eats its way right through your brain.

Saburo Moroi (1903-1977): Symphony No. 3 (1944)
This is the one that drew me back to the store, because I know Moroi. Many years ago I stumbled on an LP of his Second. The liner notes compared the music to Bruckner, Nielsen, and Hovhaness, all absolute favorites, and I knew this was for me. It's been high on my list of great unknown modern symphonies ever since, but I'd never seen anything else by him. Now I have. The Third is much more somber. The liner notes cite Beethoven, Franck, Bruckner and Shostakovich, and I'd say that's in increasing order of appropriateness. The scherzo has the cold choppiness of Shostakovich, and the towering chill of the long Adagio finale - perhaps Moroi could tell that Japan was losing the war? - is just awesome. Best of its kind since Tchaikovsky's Pathetique? Maybe.

Akira Ifukube (1914-2006): Sinfonia Tapkaara (1954)
This guy was from Hokkaido, and was inspired by the Ainu, whom he appears to have found closely related to early Stravinsky and Prokofiev. Bouncy, harsh, irregular rhythms; more colorful orchestrations; and a stronger "Japanese" air to the harmonies than any of the previous composers. You might know Ifukube's work without realizing it, since he composed the music for most of the Godzilla films. A potpourri Symphonic Fantasia of his movie music, dating from 1983, is also on the disc, and while similar in style is considerably more fun than the symphony.

Yasushi Akutagawa (1925-1989): Ellora Symphony (1958)
More of a modernist than any of the other composers here, but still not too much of one. Lots of nationalistic instruments and harmonies, a bit in the Ifukube style, but all three works on this disc are much better than the Tapkaara. I even like them better than most of Takemitsu and Mayuzumi, but that may be just me. If those names mean anything to you, try this symphony, which has the same kind of eerie stillness as their work, with wild outbreaks of sudden vehemence. Sort of Kanchelian, and possibly better than him too. It's a single 18-minute movement divided on this disc into 16 tracks without any explanation as to why. A 1971 Rhapsody is less eerie and more vehement, and the 1948 Symphonic Trinity is more conventional in style, closer to Ifukube in vocabulary, and could go well with the heavy but charming theatre music of Khachaturian and Kabalevsky. The finale is a real bang-up of a "get 'em outta here" job.

Comments

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

That store had some nice used CDs. I was able to resist, but had to think about it.

Naxos has a good web site. If you sign up (free), you can hear the first 1/4 of any track on just about any disk. A lot of their stuff isn't available in the US. They send me a newsletter that trumpets stuff I can't buy. If I ever get really desperate for something, I'll have somebody get it for me in the UK and send it over, I guess.

I tried to look at Musical Heritage Society's web page the other day after getting the hundredth "You used to be a member -- why not rejoin?" notice. I thought I'd look and see if they still had some of the good obscure stuff, like transcriptions. Turns out you can't look at the page unless you're a member already. That must really bring in the subscriptions. Everybody wants a pig in a poke, right? They offer 7 disks for 99 cents each as an inducement, but they have to be from a selection of 100 disks in the mailer they send out, and I simply can't find seven of anything I want enough to pay 99 cents for.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I like the ease of buying hard-to-find stuff from websites when I already know what I want. But I loathe browsing - casually flipping around to see what I might want - on the web, so much so that I will not take it up until the last brick-and-mortar store closes. Consequently, as I can order Naxos CDs that I know I want from Amazon, I've never visited its website, though I know what it can do and have directed others there.

If there's a CD you want that's only available in the UK, have you tried ordering from Amazon.co.uk? I know it works for books.

I get those mailings from MHS also. But as the reason I'm no longer a member is that they kicked me out for not buying enough, I can easily resist their blandishments to return.

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

Saburo Moroi (1903-1977): Symphony No. 3 (1944)
This is the one that drew me back to the store, because I know Moroi. Many years ago I stumbled on an LP of his Second.

Yes, I remember that LP, on issued in the US on Varèse-Sarabande as I recall. I later found a (Japanese-issued) LP of his Fourth, but didn't care for it nearly as much. Haven't yet bought or heard the Third.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I could compile a short, sad list of composers who wrote two or three really good symphonies and then sort of lost the groove: Nielsen, Lilburn, Ives ...