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Although the most publicized events have been and will be presented in Carnegie Hall, two important concerts are being sponsored by Columbia University's Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies. The first of these concerts centered around traditional Japanese music (hogaku) as opposed to courtly Japanese music (gagaku). It took place at Columbia's Miller Theatre on December 16th.
The concert had a very symmetrical design. Divided into two parts, the first part focused mainly on some music and/or text of historic importance for four important hogaku instruments, the koto, the shakuhachi, the biwa and the voice. The second consisted of more current Japanese music inspired by traditional music, but for the same instruments. The instruments were introduced in the same order for both parts of the program: first the koto (see the illustration below taken from the Metropolitan Museum), then the shakuhachi, then the biwa (see the illustration below) and voice and finally a duet for biwa and shakuhachi. The performers were all highly acclaimed masters of their instruments. It was interesting that the performers all sat on the floor for the first half but either stood or sat on benches for the second half.
The first piece on the program, Midare (Disarray), was composed by the J.S. Bach of Japanese music (He in fact died the year that Bach was born). This is apparently a work that is one of the canonical pieces of repertoire koto students must master (sort of like at least some of the preludes and fugues of the Well-tempered Clavier for pianists in the Western tradition). There are lots of implications to the title of the work and the music contains many pictorial aspects (such as "the cries of summer insects"). A very meditative work, there is a very obvious drone or pedal tone in many sections. Pitches are often bent. It is obvious that the tuning is not always in line with Western tuning. The performer, Yoko Nichi, wore a beautiful kimono. This signified, to me at least, the extremely high degree of respect performers have for this music. No sweatshirts and jeans or casual attire!
The second work, performed by supreme shakuhachi master Kifu Mitsuhachi, was one that I was familiar with. Entitled Tsuru no sugomori (Nesting Cranes), this narrative work follows the life path of two cranes. The bamboo flute shakuhachi was traditionally performed by monks and was a part of the extreme disciplinary code they followed as they travelled throughout Japan. Once again, the music had an overall meditative quality. Breath control is very important (letting the breath out as well as in) and many techniques of great shakuhachi playing such as register shifts, ornaments, and vibrato were amply displayed in the performance.
The third work, Dan no ura (no translation provided), was strikingly different. Composed in 1964, it nonetheless strives to replicate a historic performance of a portion of the medieval epic Tales of the Heike (the composer of this version is Kinshi Tsuruta). The performer, Yukio Tanaka, who both played the biwa and sang, was dressed in grey, and became almost invisible. This sectional and highly dramatic work reminded me of a performance I heard a long time ago of a portion of Homer's The Iliad. The biwa, which looks much like a lute, is played with a large fan-shaped plectrum. What struck me the most was the fact that, in contrast to the refined and meditative sounds of the koto and shakuhachi, the biwa was played very roughly and often stridently. The work is a lament and a very emotional work. Slapping the strings of the biwa with the plectrum, which reminded me of pounding on one's chest in grief, punctuates the largely recitative-like vocal part. This music is music of intensity, not music of meditation.
The mood of the concert changed completely with the final piece on the first part. Haru no umi (The Sea in Spring). Images of nature, both violent and serene, permeate Japanese music but this peace emphasized the serene aspect of nature. This work, composed in 1929 by Michiyo Miyagi, immediately struck me as being highly Westernized (serving both as a balance to the severely traditional first three pieces and as a transition into the second half). Melody is very prominent with call and responses and question and answer phrasing in the koto and shakuhachi parts. The shakuhachi used here was smaller and more recorder-like than the first shakuhachi and the sound was much closer to a recorder and flute than a shakuhachi. The use of a pentatonic scale (with clearly Western tuning) was very obvious as well. A startling feature of this piece was the fact that the shakuhachi performer was very much not Japanese. James Nyoraku Schlefer has become one of the acknowledged masters of the shakuhachi. I remember that I brought him to Meredith College several years ago for a demonstration and performance in the atrium of the Math and Science building.
The second half of the program began with a virtuoso koto solo, Gaku (Bliss), composed in 1988 by Tadao Sawai. The performer, Yoko Nishi, had changed to a modern, but extremely elegant, garment that evoked some of the qualities of a traditional komono but with a more flowing and Westernized style. The koto was now on a stand rather than on the floor. The music has a very Debussyan quality and at times evokes both classical and Spanish guitar sounds. The layered textures are put into relief by complicated polyrhythms which were all brilliantly negotiated by the performer.
The next piece, Chikurai gosho (Bamboo Soundings in Five Movements), reflects a blending of traditional shakuhachi techniques (as demonstrated so well in Nesting Cranes) with a number of Western avante-garde techniques (such as Webernesque pointillism) and non-tonal writing. There is still a strong evocation of nature and vivid imagery.
Returning to the biwa and voice, Yukio Tanak performed his own setting of a personal reflection of a poem by a 12th-century Heike clan warrior. Although some of the features of the work reminded one of the earlier work performed by Mr. Tanaka, this work is much more somber and meditative-- far less dramatic and emotional. The poem reads (in translation):
On the Road
Night after night, alone in a half-empty bed I ruminate.
How very far away from home I've come.
The entire program culminated with a performance by Mr. Tanaka and Mr. Mitsuhachi of the cadenza from Toru Takemitsu's November Steps. The entire work was composed at the request of Leonard Bernstein for the New York Philharmonic in 1967. The program notes comment on how some members of the Philharmonic snickered when they first heard these instruments because the aesthetic driving the performance was so different from their own. However, after listening to the performers for awhile, they became awestruck at the technical mastery of the performers and at the impact of their playing. In creating this work, which places the traditional Western orchestra with these two traditional Japanese instruments, Takemitsu himself reflected on the differences not just in sound and performance technique between the two but also the very nature of the music with Western instruments walking "a linear line like the horizon and the Japanese instruments crossing "that line a right angles" and emerging "vertically and organically" like the branching of trees. It was his way of viewing these two groupings in a complementary way.
Because each of the pieces on the program was relatively short and because there was an opportunity to hear the instruments at least twice in different contexts, audience members gained some good experience, not just with the instruments themselves and with the music composed for them, but also with the very nature of the music and ways it sometimes contrasts and sometimes blends in with our Western tradition.
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