Debussy's Corner

[milk]

There must be a book on the way Western classical music was taken up by Japanese performers and composers. One thing that's interesting is that it was all one way as far as I can see - not many western performers are playing Japanese music.

I know there's Takemitsu. Is there really so much more in the classical tradition? I mean I'm certain I've missed a few. But I think audiences in Japan expect pretty middle of the road repertoire anyway: Mozart, Chopin, etc., so it's not exactly a nurturing scene for budding Japanese composers.
I like that album by Sarah Cahill of the Japanese composer Fujieda. It's modern stuff. He hooked up biofeedback to plants and turned into music supposedly. But it just sounds like simplified baroque with no development. Minimalist baroque. Sorry, I digress.

[Luke]

In this respect the phenomenon of the 'kejishoku' - the enormous impression on young Japanese composers made by John Cage and David Tudor on their Japanese tour is worth considering.

[Mandryka]

I know there's Takemitsu. Is there really so much more in the classical tradition? I mean I'm certain I've missed a few. But I think audiences in Japan expect pretty middle of the road repertoire anyway: Mozart, Chopin, etc., so it's not exactly a nurturing scene for budding Japanese composers.
I like that album by Sarah Cahill of the Japanese composer Fujieda. It's modern stuff. He hooked up biofeedback to plants and turned into music supposedly. But it just sounds like simplified baroque with no development. Minimalist baroque. Sorry, I digress.

Akahira Nashimura, Jo Kondo, Toshio Hosokawa, Misato Mochizuki, Yoshi Wada, Mamoru Fujieda . . .

 

[Mandryka]

In this respect the phenomenon of the 'kejishoku' - the enormous impression on young Japanese composers made by John Cage and David Tudor on their Japanese tour is worth considering.

But where does it come out in the compositions?  In Jo Kondo, I can hear it maybe. But where else?

[Mandryka]

I know there's Takemitsu. Is there really so much more in the classical tradition? I mean I'm certain I've missed a few. But I think audiences in Japan expect pretty middle of the road repertoire anyway: Mozart, Chopin, etc., so it's not exactly a nurturing scene for budding Japanese composers.
I like that album by Sarah Cahill of the Japanese composer Fujieda. It's modern stuff. He hooked up biofeedback to plants and turned into music supposedly. But it just sounds like simplified baroque with no development. Minimalist baroque. Sorry, I digress.

Just a point about this.  Japanese musicians are doing some of the least "middle of the road" western early music making. And yet, when you read their CVs, they've all of them studied not with "oriental" masters but in Ansterdam and Basel!

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Ladies and gents, thank you for your interests. In case, the below are YT lists of Chieko Hara and Kiyoko Tanaka - another student of Lazare Levy at Conservatoire de Paris. Chieko Hara plays Chopin too, but I think her Debussy sounds better.


https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7uG3nzjmyOBURMGakqBmpMnodjDn_MdL

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7uG3nzjmyODbcMZMg-ZlQvtSeYtxVXhH

[Iota]

Chieko Hara - another Japanese student of Lazare Levy and Alfred Cortot in Paris.

Thanks for posting this. Interesting pianist whom I'd never heard of. I've been enjoying her Chopin PC 1 on youtube that you've also posted above. Will take a look at the second link later.

[Mandryka]

Just a point about this.  Japanese musicians are doing some of the least "middle of the road" western early music making. And yet, when you read their CVs, they've all of them studied not with "oriental" masters but in Ansterdam and Basel!

Here's a doctorate on Lazare Levy and the Japanese cultural engagement with the West which may be interesting (in French)

https://theses.hal.science/tel-03828314v1/document

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Lazare-Levy, the mentor of Clara Haskil, Monique Haas, Chieko Hara, Kazuko Yasukawa, Katsuhisa Nobechi etc.
During WWII, the Japanese pupils lived in Imperial Japan while Lazare-Levy was a Jew in the occupied France.
They maintained a good relationship and LL was invited to Japan in 1950.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

William Harms.

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/12/obituaries/william-harms-75-pianist-had-taught-at-marymount.html

[George]

A fantastic recent discovery of mine was Debussy's early-ish Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra. Why isn't this work played/discussed more often? It's absolutely gorgeous!

I agree!

Which recordings do people like for this work? I have only heard Ciccolini/Martinon.

[atardecer]

Debussy was music. Scriabin, something else, beyond. Quasi-synesthesia.

Scriabin seems to have quite a following among pianists lately, I think his popularity is increasing. I suspect the similarities his music has with the music of Chopin is part of the reason. He sounds to me somewhat like a modern Chopin with more dissonance and jazzy harmonies. 

Present the music as a suggestion of something ineffable which lies behind the real, rather than as a picture of the real.

This aligns somewhat with Cortot's thoughts on performing Debussy, and perhaps is where the idea originated. Cortot stated Debussy's music suggests the 'invisible in nature' and 'the indefinable that sings and vibrates under the appearance of things and beings.'

[Pohjolas Daughter]

This is a lovely version of the Fantaisie.  This is the first movement.  You can listen to the other ones by clicking on the topic--Anne Queffélec.  I'm not familiar with the Ciccolini/Martinon version.


Piano: Anne Queffélec
Conductor: Armin Jordan
Orchestra: Orchestre National de l'Opéra de Monte-Carlo
Composer: Claude Debussy

PD

[Symphonic Addict]

A first listen to Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien. Somehow I was expecting an early work, not properly typical of his full-fledged impressionist style. How wrong I was, but eventually, I was glad, it succeeded my expectations. What struck me the most is how ecstatic and mystical it sounds, not even in his Pelléas et Mélisande I perceived that level of gorgeousness; the writing for female voices, especially, is beyond sublime, just mesmerizingly divine, let alone the flawless orchestration. It incorporates narration, and since it was in French, it didn't bother me. This language is so "musical" that flows quite well with the instruments and sung voices.

The detail that didn't appeal to me that much was the dynamic range of the recording. It is too inaudible in places, and in others there's this sudden loud explosion that makes me jump out of my seat.

All this time I was missing a major work!

[Mandryka]

How do you feel about having so much of the text? I actually think it's a good thing - though I can't really explain why (a bit like having the chant in a performance of a composed renaissance mass - it seems to help me pace the experience.)


The music's very high quality Debussy IMO - apart from the pompous ending.  There's a sort of anxiety and sadness about it, not quite at the same level as Pelléas but still. Much of it reminds me of Parsifal, Act 2 especially.


@Symphonic Addict

[Symphonic Addict]

How do you feel about having so much of the text? I actually think it's a good thing - though I can't really explain why (a bit like having the chant in a performance of a composed renaissance mass - it seems to help me pace the experience.)


The music's very high quality Debussy IMO - apart from the pompous ending.  There's a sort of anxiety and sadness about it, not quite at the same level as Pelléas but still. Much of it reminds me of Parsifal, Act 2 especially.


@Symphonic Addict

I'd rather listen to without spoken texts at all, but given that French suits music and sung voices in a way that doesn't distract much, it's passable overall. Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc is another example where I don't mind the narration. Perhaps you can understand French, so narration might be more pleasurable to you. If it were German, Spanish, English or any other Nordic language, the experience would be much less enjoyable to me.

I can relate to the sadness element you point out. Moreover, there's something ethereal along the music that is pretty compelling.

[Mandryka]

André Capelet made a piano reduction of Martyre - very nice! It's surprising that there isn't an oratorio version on record, at least not as far as I know. Just the music without the recitant.

[Mandryka]

I'd rather listen to without spoken texts at all, but given that French suits music and sung voices in a way that doesn't distract much, it's passable overall. Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc is another example where I don't mind the narration. Perhaps you can understand French, so narration might be more pleasurable to you. If it were German, Spanish, English or any other Nordic language, the experience would be much less enjoyable to me.

I can relate to the sadness element you point out. Moreover, there's something ethereal along the music that is pretty compelling.

Have you tried Cambreling? The pure naration (which is in German) is all on separate tracks, so easy to remove. Outstanding performance, in some ways I prefer it to Tilson Thomas, especially in the second half.

[ritter]

The Ansermet recording of Le Martyre is also sans narration, but unfortunately the choral singing is among the worst committed to disc in a commercial recording I have ever heard. 

[Symphonic Addict]

Have you tried Cambreling? The pure naration (which is in German) is all on separate tracks, so easy to remove. Outstanding performance, in some ways I prefer it to Tilson Thomas, especially in the second half.

Thank you, Howard. No, I haven't, the Tilson Thomas is the only recording I know so far. I'll take it in mind.