Review of 'Total Immersion: Sounds from Japan' by Orlando Byron

Total Immersion: Sounds from Japan was a series of concerts at the Barbican on February 2nd. Instead of focusing on one composer as they have done previously, they focused on one country. There were a number of concerts and films celebrating both traditional and modern classical music from Japan.

The largest of the events on the day was the evening concert in the main hall. The concert was made up of works by modern classical composers, living and dead. As those who attended the talk on Takemitsu’s music at the Foundation last April will know*, Toru Takemitsu may be the most celebrated Japanese composer internationally. Toru Takemitsu’s November Steps is the product of Takemitsu attempting to merge the Japanese and the Western. It is said that he took Debussy’s Jeux with him to his mountain villa for the composition of this piece. One can easily see the similarities in both the spooky atmosphere and the harmonic language, though, clearly, Takemitsu is far less tonal. His unique use of orchestration serves beautifully to contrast with the two soloists. Takemitsu’s typical disregard for traditional form is shown in the piece, focusing on each individual sound as beautiful in its own right. Takemitsu viewed the contrasting musical traditions as too different to merge, and instead juxtaposed the sounds of the shakuhachi and biwa with the orchestra. Though he keeps them separate, he allows some imitation, such as the percussive strings imitating the large plectrum of the ‘Satsuma biwa’ hitting the body of the instrument, or the glissandi in the strings imitating the shakuhachi. As with the premiere, when Bernstein and Copland, among others, held it in high esteem, the audience’s rapturous applause lasted quite a while! This is a truly gorgeous piece, and worth listening to for anyone who enjoys the medium of atonal music or the medium of Japanese traditional music. The soloists (Shutou Kumiko and Kifu Mitsuhashi) performed the piece beautifully, as did the orchestra.

Another piece was the UK premiere of Dai Fujikura’s Atom. Dai Fujikura is a Japanese composer who was educated in the UK and the recipient on numerous awards. This piece was inspired by the technique in electronic music studios of granulating melodic material and expanding it. The idea of a single staccato note is the basis of the piece, expanding to the “juicy” ending (his word, not mine). Fujikura’s synaesthetic approach to music, approaching it as not only auditory, but visual and tactile, seems to work in this piece; the ocean of sound created by the undulating violin counterpoint together with longer notes and fragmentary melodies in the wind, contrasted by brass chords, fluid melodies and long swells in other places makes for a piece that retains interest, despite its absurdly small starting point of the single staccato note and 14-minute length.

Akira Nishimura’s Bird Heterophony was based on the Papua New Guinean myth of a man turning into a bird. The themes are developed and put into a complex polyphonic texture, building up toward the end. The use of bowed vibraphone was particularly beautiful and haunting. The other pieces included Misato Mochizuki’s Musubi (which has clear influences from gagaku and, believe it or not, techno), Toshio Hosokawa’s Woven Dreams (the UK premiere) and Akira Miyoshi’s Litania Fuji (based on the great mountain). Perhaps the most remarkable performers were the percussionists, both pitched and unpitched, who have quite demanding roles in most of the pieces. The memorable (and virtuosic) use of gongs and bells, as well as marimbas, triangles and other standard percussion instruments was one of the highlights of the concert. The conductor, Tokyo-born Kazushi Ono, was a joy to watch, leading the already-brilliant orchestra.

This was a fascinating concert that gave great insight into modern Japanese classical music. If you wish to hear the concert, which I would highly recommend, it is currently available on the BBC website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qdy5x.

*The Music of Toru Takemitsu: A talk by Noriko Ohtake &

A review of The Music of Toru Takemitsu: A talk by Noriko Ohtake

Text kindly written by Orlando Byron (former work experience student at the Foundation).