- Artist:
Takashi Yoshimatsu - Rating:
- Release Date: 1991
- Genre: Avant-Garde
Review
A double-CD set performed by the New Japan Philharmonic, the Tokyo Flute Ensemble, the Japan Philharmonics Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and several soloists. Yoshimatsu's "Threnody to Toki, for string orchestra and piano, Op. 12" was composed to reflect the composer's concern for nature and world ecology. He particularly chose the plight and eventual extinction of the spectacular white bird with a large wing span and long beak called the toki, of which only two were alive in 1991. The orchestra in fact is arranged in the shape of the bird (one is reminded of the Agni vedic ceremony held every 50 years in India in which a large bird is constructed from bricks, and similar celebrations in other cultures). The piano is the bird's body and the strings are the wings, the contrabasses are the tail (behind the piano). Several gentle chords slowly crescendo while fleeting string harmonics sail in and around the texture. The chords become gorgeously dense, and the flying motions even more evocative. We hear the cries of the bird as it struggles to regain flight that was once so natural and easy."Chikap" is the Ainu word for bird. This richly textured piece is for a flute orchestra consisting of two piccolos, eight flutes, two alto flutes, two bass flutes, one contrabass flute, which are distributed, like several of the composer's other ensembles, in a visual stage pattern: the six solo flutes are three on the left and three on the right as the "wings" and a group of nine flutes in the middle and lower registers are arranged in the figure of a bird's body. "The Age of Birds" is basically a symphony in three movements: "Sky" ("What the sky gives to birds"), "Tree" ("What a tree narrates to birds"), and "Sun" ("What the sun presents to birds"). On this modern impressionistic score, the composer sought to imitate the manners of birds" how they open their wings, the softness of feathers, their gestures on the ground or in trees, the figures of a flock of birds in the sky. He succeeds beautifully. The delightful "Digital Bird Suite" for flute and piano is extracted "from fictitious music for a fictitiuous ballet, the hero of which is a mechanical bird named Digital Bird." There are five pieces in the suite: "Birdphobia (variation)" (the bird feels it has to leave the forest), "A Bird in the Twilight (lullaby)", Twitter Machine (intermezzo)", "A Bird at Noon (waltz)" and "Bird Circuit (rondo)." The four movements of the "4 Pieces in Bird Shape" for clarinet and piano spell the word "bird": Ballade - Invention Recitativo Divertimento. Like the other bird pieces, this lyrical set is built from flighty gestures and slowly flowing song forms. The "Random Bird Variations" for two pianos are an overview of compositional techniques which were born in the 20th-century: chance, tone clusters, neo-classicism, jazz, minimalism, neo-romanticism, etc. Strange to say, the composer manages to make the piece have its own unique and attractive sound. The "Symphony No. 2 (At Terra)" has three movements each of which is inspired by music in Asian, European and African religious styles: "Dirge-from the East," "Requiem-from the West," and "Canticle-from the South." This is tonal music that is still truly innovative as well as beautiful. ~ "Blue" Gene Tyranny, All Music Guide
