Various - The Min-On Contemporary Music Festival '81 mp3

The orchestral tryptic
Scenes From Basho (1980)
composed by Joji Yuasa
is haunting without giving up vitality.

A perhaps somber world,
not without violence,
of almost tangible images,
sounding somewhere
vicinitous of impressionism,
and expressionism.

Joji Yuasa has used
the writings of Basho
(a Japanese writer
from the 1600's)
as inspiration for
many of his pieces.

Here, I offer my English,
sometimes different,
version of the three haiku,
that entitle the pieces
of this orchestral tryptic,
Scenes From Basho:

______________________

A Winter Sun

On My Horse

A Shadow Sits Freezing

_______________________

Summer Brightness

Relentless Hot

. . . and yet,
. . . the wind,
is of autumn . . .

_________________________

The full moon of Autumn.

And the tide approaches the gate.

The wave crests
ascend, quietly,
the gate steps.

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I find the sound in this recording
very unbalanced and difficult to
listen to. This performance might
be well served, to be very freely
remastered.

Perhaps, more guided by the ear,
than the eye, or maybe vice versa.
Or maybe just plainly less guided
by the microphoning and the mixing.

Remix it, to unmix and unmic it. :)
Especially, the first movement,
or first scene (or tableau, as they
say in French). (I think.)

For example, in the first scene,
the percussion strikes would
appear to need to be quite
sharp and dry, to fit into any
idea of the texture. Instead,
they are remarkably (and,
most likely, unnaturally)
clangorous and blurred.

It is no small problem, because
it is an important recurring and
constructing element.

Nevertheless,
I well appreciate
the opportunity to hear
a captured performance
of this piece.

It is frustrating, because much
of the performance is in a state
of perfection.

This is a live recording. And
I have nothing but admiration
for Tadaaki Otaka, the conductor,
and the Tokyo Philharmonic
Orchestra, who, in despite of
surely not having enough time
to bring this to the perfected
end they might have liked,
nevertheless, put in much
good and valuable work.

________________________________

The piece, itself, is certainly
an interpretive challenge.

Especially, the piece ends with
a rather prosaic clock figure
with strings in harmonics
that Salvador-Dalianly dissolves
cleverly away, but would be
best omitted, or be entered
into and addressed by some
strategy ameliorating the
marring out-of-characterness
of the passage.

(After 15 minutes of carefully
blended fade ins and fade outs,
with organic rhythms and phrases,
suddenly, stilted clock rhythms
and a, very out of place, tired
consequent phrase).

Maybe use the same string
harmonics to fade in one
of the rhythmic motifs of
the piece, and have that
dissolve away.

The performance handles it
beautifully, considering its
consignedness to the score's
writtenness.

"Full Moon Of Autumn;
Waves Head Crawling
Up To The Gate", is the
given title for the last
movement. Maybe the
ticking of the clock, is
actually the crawling of
the waves.

Therefore, maybe that codetta,
after the evaded cadence
(a stop in the music that
is built toward, but does
not happen), is more
consistent with the Basho:

Autumn Full Moon

Wave Crests Ascend

Quietly Gate Steps

_______________________________

As of times of old gone by,
the case is very heavy plastic:
2.95 ounces, without the disk
and booklet (just the back card).