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Wu Man, Yuri Bashmet - Tan Dun: Pipa Concerto; Toru Takemitsu: Nostalghia; Hikaru Hayashi: Viola Concerto (2008)

Posted By: Designol
Wu Man, Yuri Bashmet - Tan Dun: Pipa Concerto; Toru Takemitsu: Nostalghia; Hikaru Hayashi: Viola Concerto (2008)

Tan Dun: Pipa Concerto; Tōru Takemitsu: Nostalghia; Hikaru Hayashi: Viola Concerto (2008)
Wu Man, pipa; Yuri Bashmet, violin & viola, conductor; Moscow Soloists; Roman Balashov, conductor

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 301 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 205 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical | Label: Onyx | # 4027 | Time: 01:18:02

Tan Dun's Concerto for String Orchestra and Pipa (1999) is a reworking of one of his most popular works, Ghost Opera, written for and recorded by the Kronos Quartet. In this version, the composer's characteristic polystylism – which here includes Chinese folk song, Copland-esque Big Sky music, quotations from Bach, and vocalizations by the orchestra – comes across as a jumble, without much of a strong vision holding the disparate elements together. Pipa virtuoso Wu Man, who appeared on the Kronos recording, plays the concerto with energy and delicacy. She's ably accompanied by the Moscow Soloists, led by Yuri Bashmet. The concerto is followed by Takemitsu's Nostalghia (1987) for violin and string orchestra. Its compositional assurance, clarity, subtly nuanced orchestration, and emotional directness make it all the more striking in contrast to the Tan Dun. Here Bashmet is the impassioned soloist, with Roman Balashov conducting with great sensitivity. The three brief excerpts from Takemitsu's film scores are a pleasant stylistic diversion – light, strongly differentiated character pieces.

Christian Lindberg, Kioi Sinfonietta Tokyo, Tadaaki Otaka - Toru Takemitsu: How Slow the Wind, etc (2001)

Posted By: Designol
Christian Lindberg, Kioi Sinfonietta Tokyo, Tadaaki Otaka - Toru Takemitsu: How Slow the Wind, etc (2001)

Toru Takemitsu: How Slow the Wind, etc (2001)
Christian Lindberg (trombone); Kioi Sinfonietta, Tokyo; Tadaaki Otaka, conductor

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 254 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 174 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical | Label: BIS | # BIS-CD-301078 | Time: 01:11:37

It is rare to find a disc as creatively programmed as this BIS release. Enhanced by lovely performances, played with great devotion to the memory of the recently-deceased Japanese master, the repertoire was chosen by conductor Tadaaki Otaka and producer Robert Suff, who organized it not only in the most effective succesion, but in a manner that illustrates the works’ individual meaning and illuminates Takemitsu’s career. All but one of the compositions are from Takemitsu’s late period. The other, the Requiem for Strings, is one of the earliest works to win him fame. Fantasma/Cantos II, for trombone and orchestra, is among the last Takemitsu compositions. Both it and the Requiem provide considerably more forward harmonic motion than the other four works, which are in Takemitsu’s typical “Japanese garden” meditative style, a kind of revival of French impressionism using harmonies that are more like Messiaen’s than Debussy’s.

Susan Hoeppner & Rachel Gauk - The Sea in Spring: Japanese Music for Flute and Guitar (1999)

Posted By: Designol
Susan Hoeppner & Rachel Gauk - The Sea in Spring: Japanese Music for Flute and Guitar (1999)

Susan Hoeppner & Rachel Gauk - The Sea in Spring: Japanese Music for Flute and Guitar (1999)
Michio Miyagi · Teruyuki Noda · Tōru Takemitsu · Katsutoshi Nagasawa · Yoshiharu Ganryu
Haseo Sugiyama · Ryūtarō Hirota · Kōhachiro Miyata

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 286 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 205 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical, World Music | Label: BIS | # BIS-CD-969 | Time: 01:13:24

During the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912) a broad diffusion of Western music flowed into Japan, first in the form of military band music and. later, Protestant hymns. By 1900, recitals of piano, violin and song were quite popular. Composers like Prokofiev, and performers such as Heifetz, Kreisler and Segovia also encouraged this musical direction, which strongly followed German Romanticism and French Impressionism. The new Western repertoire found a place with the traditional Japanese music, hdgaku, and as the two traditions came in contact, a new and unique form of music emerged. One of the most fascinating developments in Japanese music was the introduction of new instruments in the south of Japan, and their metamorphosis as they migrated north via Kyoto and Tokyo. Several composers on this disc have focused on natural themes, with water being a favourite and obvious choice. The works have been chosen to give a sampling of the diversity of Japanese music, from the beautiful, traditional folk-songs to the complex and challenging multi-movement works, many of which evoke the traditional instruments, namely shakuhachi and koto.

Gidon Kremer & Naoko Yoshino - Insomnia (1999)

Posted By: Designol
Gidon Kremer & Naoko Yoshino - Insomnia (1999)

Gidon Kremer & Naoko Yoshino - Insomnia (1999)
works by Jean Françaix, John Cage, Arvo Pärt, Richard Strauss, Nino Rota, Alfred Schnittke
Erik Satie, Toru Takemitsu, Michio Miyagi, Yuji Takahashi, Kaija Saariaho

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 315 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 194 Mb | Scans included
Classical, Contemporary | Label: Philips | # 289 456 016-2 | Time: 01:18:10

This is a handsome-looking compact disc release, with strikingly muted graphics in cool purple tones, featuring Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer and Japanese harpist Naoko Yoshina. Here the pretty graphics go a little too far: the buyer finds no listing of compositions on the outside of the package and has no way of knowing what is played aside from a bare mention of the names of the 11 composers featured. That's where the All Classical Guide comes in. The works were all written in the twentieth century. They are: Michio Miyagi's Haru no umi (Ocean in Spring, a calming, melodic piece); Kaija Saariaho's Nocturne for violin solo (a somewhat avant-garde coloristic piece); Toru Takemitsu's Stanza II for harp and tape (also pretty far out and very Japanese-sounding); Yuji Takahashi's Insomnia for violin, voices, and kugo (strange, but oddly soothing); a movement from Satie's Le fils des étoiles as arranged by Takahashi (austere); Jean Françaix's Five Little Duets (100 percent charming); the Étude for violin from Richard Strauss's Daphne (also charming); Six Melodies by John Cage (simple and pleasant); Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel (even simpler and not startling); Nino Rota's love theme from The Godfather (you know this one); and the final movement from Schnittke's Suite in the Old Style (gently Classical except for one deliberately horrendous dissonance).

Schumann Quartett - Landscapes: Haydn, Takemitsu, Bartok, Pärt (2017)

Posted By: Designol
Schumann Quartett - Landscapes: Haydn, Takemitsu, Bartok, Pärt (2017)

Schumann Quartett - Landscapes: Haydn, Takemitsu, Bartok, Pärt (2017)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 308 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 152 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical | Label: Berlin Classics | # 0300836BC | Time: 01:05:42

Joseph Haydn is a conscientious revolutionary. His “Sunrise” Quartet op. 76 No. 4 is littered with idiosyncrasies. Just as you are thinking you can get the hang of this music, it slips away from you again. The Schumann Quartet is hooked on Joseph Haydn! There’s a reason for this addiction, of course; without Haydn, the “string quartet” genre would be like a string instrument without a bow. True, the composer is still – somewhat disrespectfully – called “Papa Haydn”, whether to stress his place in the evolutionary chain linking Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadéus Mozart or because his works allegedly lack the inquisitiveness of a Mozart or the philosophical profundities of a Beethoven. Joseph Haydn has yet to recover from such false assessments. And it is abundantly clear from the “Sunrise” Quartet op. 76 No. 4 just how false they are. The three brothers Mark, Erik and Ken Schumann, who grew up in the Rhineland, have been playing together for five years.

Satoko Inoue - Japan Piano 1996 (1997)

Posted By: Designol
Satoko Inoue - Japan Piano 1996 (1997)

Satoko Inoue - Japan Piano 1996 (1997)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 230 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 173 Mb | Scans included
Classical, Contemporary | Label: hat[now]ART | # hat[now]Art103 | Time: 01:10:01

This debut recording by the auspicious Japanese pianist Satoko Inoue is doubly so because of its program: eight works by Japanese composers. Inoue is well-known for a repertoire of 20th century classical music by composers as diverse as Feldman, Cage, Varese, Debussy, and Ives. To choose for her debut recording the works of Japanese composers as diverse as Toru Takemitsu, Jo Kondo, Mamorou Fujieda, Sesshu Kai, and the father of all Nippon composers from the last century, Yoritsune Matsudaira. Given the difference between pre- and post-World War II Japan, it is of no surprise that the stylistic differences between composers born before and after the war would be great. All of them hold within them, however, one distinct quality: to offer the emotional essence of the object considered. Inoue wisely structures her program to convey the essentialist nature of all the works she performs.

Tokyo Metropolitan SO, Ryusuke Numajiri - Toru Takemitsu: Orchestral Works III: Autumn, etc. (1997)

Posted By: Designol
Tokyo Metropolitan SO, Ryusuke Numajiri - Toru Takemitsu: Orchestral Works III: Autumn, etc. (1997)

Toru Takemitsu - Orchestral Works III: Autumn, etc. (1997)
Katsuya Yokoyama, shakuhachi; Kakujo Nakamura, biwa; Hiroshi Koizumi, flute
Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ryusuke Numajiri

EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 255 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 146 Mb | Scans included
Classical, Contemporaty | Label: Denon/Nippon | # CO-18032 | Time: 00:53:40

Performed by various soloists with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ryusuke Numajiri. Recorded both in analog and digital versions in the Japanese double-CD release. "Twill by Twilight" is a harmonically and timbrally lush work, which often evokes the tone painting breadth of Debussy and the crystalline delicacy of Webern, an outpouring of "pastel coloring…reminders of the transient nature of twilight, before the coming night and after the sunset" (Takemitsu). It is dedicated to "the memory of my dear friend Morton Feldman." Takemitsu described the work's sub-structure as developed "through strictly measured musical units, through what might be called musical principles before a melody is constituted or before a rhythm is formed." This is a very apt metaphor applicable to Morton Feldman's own compositional style. The small and broad cyclicism of the rhythm patterns in Takemitsu's work is however much more hidden – a kind of phased, elastic, non-clockwork repetition with imaginative variations.

New Zealand String Quartet - Asian Music for String Quartet (2012)

Posted By: Designol
New Zealand String Quartet - Asian Music for String Quartet (2012)

New Zealand String Quartet - Asian Music for String Quartet (2012)
Zhou Long, Chinary Ung, Gao Ping, Tōru Takemitsu, Tan Dun

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 242 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 163 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical, Chamber Music | Label: Naxos | # 8.572488 | Time: 00:58:07

This programme brings together aesthetic and musical elements of East and West. Zhou Long captures the essence of the Chinese plucked ch’in, and Cambodian aesthetics are preserved in Chinary Ung’s expressive Spiral III. Tan Dun’s Eight Colors combines the exotic timbres of Peking Opera with Second Viennese School tonalities. Gao Ping’s Bright Light and Cloud Shadows has been admired for its ‘long-breathed brush strokes’ (Washington Post). Taking its inspiration from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, Toru Takemitsu’s beautifully crafted A Way a Lone evokes a shimmering sound world.

Shin-Ichi Fukuda - Japanese Guitar Music, Vol. 1: Toru Takemitsu: Complete Original Solo Guitar Works (2014)

Posted By: Designol
Shin-Ichi Fukuda - Japanese Guitar Music, Vol. 1: Toru Takemitsu: Complete Original Solo Guitar Works (2014)

Shin-Ichi Fukuda - Toru Takemitsu: Complete Original Solo Guitar Works;
Leo Brouwer - 2 Homages to Toru Takemitsu (2014)

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 169 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 146 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical | Label: Naxos | # 8.573153 | Time: 01:02:17

Toru Takemitsu is widely regarded as the greatest Japanese composer of the 20th century. After the appearance of Folios in 1974 he was acknowledged as a formidable master of writing for the guitar, bringing to the instrument a sensibility and imaginative flair which have seldom been equalled. In the Woods was his final composition. Shin-ichi Fukada and Leo Brouwer were both close friends of Takemitsu, and this programme includes Brouwer’s two heartfelt homages in his memory.

Franz Halasz - All In Twilight - Toru Takemitsu: Complete Music for Solo Guitar (2000)

Posted By: Designol
Franz Halasz - All In Twilight - Toru Takemitsu: Complete Music for Solo Guitar (2000)

Franz Halász - All In Twilight - Tōru Takemitsu: Complete Music for Solo Guitar (2000)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 264 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 165 Mb | Scans included
Classical, Guitar, Chamber Music | Label: BIS | # BIS-CD-1075 | Time: 01:10:10

German guitarist Franz Halász displays a fine sense of tone and pacing in this revealing overview of Takemitsu's solo guitar music. Takemitsu wrote for the concert stage in an original avant-garde idiom, created over 100 film soundtracks, and produced arrangements of Japanese folk tunes and Western popular music. This range, except for the soundtracks, is represented here. The title tracks are from the concert work All in Twilight – Four pieces for guitar (1987), inspired by Paul Klee's painting of the same name. Here Halász's beautiful touch is shown in contrasting and subtle timbres on the composer's rich, jazz-like harmonies, sometimes brooding, sometimes in quickly flowing passages like those of the third movement. Next, the first six of "12 Songs" introduces some technically challenging, but aesthetically straightforward arrangements – Sammy Fain's classic Secret Love, four tunes by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and George Gershwin's Summertime in which Takemitsu spectacularly manages to reduce the best orchestral parts to the limits of the guitar and to improvise in a free-flowing manner.

Izumi Tateno - Toru Takemitsu: Piano Works (1996) Reissue 2003

Posted By: Designol
Izumi Tateno - Toru Takemitsu: Piano Works (1996) Reissue 2003

Izumi Tateno - Tōru Takemitsu: Piano Works (1996) Reissue 2003
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 167 Mb | Scans included | Time: 00:56:02
Classical, Contemporary | Label: Warner Classics/Apex | # 2564 60624-2

This disc contains 11 piano pieces by Toru Takemitsu performed by Izumi Tateno. It was originally released in 1996 on Finlandia, but now appears in reissue in Warner Classics' economy line Apex. Like all of Takemitsu's oeuvre, his piano works (which altogether make up only a single CD) are meditative, intensely focused, and undramatic.

Tokyo Metropolitan SO, Yuzo Toyama, Rie Hamada - Toru Takemitsu - Orchestral Works IV: Coral Island, etc. (1998)

Posted By: Designol
Tokyo Metropolitan SO, Yuzo Toyama, Rie Hamada - Toru Takemitsu - Orchestral Works IV: Coral Island, etc. (1998)

Toru Takemitsu - Orchestral Works IV: Coral Island, etc. (1998)
Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra; Yuzo Toyama, conductor; Rie Hamada, soprano

EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 184 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 122 Mb | Scans ~ 63 Mb
Genre: Classical | Label: Denon/Nippon Columbia | # CO-18073 | Time: 00:53:26

Performed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Yuzo Toyama with soprano Rie Hamada. A beautiful digital recording of several rarely performed works by Takemitsu (the soprano part of the marvelous "Coral Island" is very difficult, for example, and the "Archipelago S" is for an unusual ensemble of instruments). Many of the subtleties of Takemitsu's writing are lost in recording (for example, subtle harmonics behind more foreground material), but the engineers made a good effort here.