March 12, 2017
PROGRAM NOTES
The following notes are copyright Susan Halpern, 2017.
MUSIC FROM JAPAN…
The Sea in Spring (Haru no Umi) for koto and shakuhachi. . .
Michio Miyagi
(Born April 7, 1894 in Kobe, Japan; died June 25, 1956 in Kariya, Aichi)
Miyagi, a prolific composer, was one of the great koto players of the 20th century and was a
leader in a movement to absorb elements of Western music into Japanese music with the
use of traditional instruments. Miyagi became blind by the time he was seven and began
studying the koto shortly after, dedicating the rest of his life to the instrument. There is a
tradition that the most famous players of the koto are blind.
In 1905, two years after he had already performed as a soloist, he received a certificate of
highest proficiency on the instrument and was assigned the professional name Nakasuga.
In 1907, he moved to what is now Korea, but was then the Japanese province of Chosen,
where taught he koto and shakuhachi; . the koto is a traditional Japanese plucked
instrument with 13 strings and the shakuhachi is a traditional bamboo flute. In Korea,
according to ethnomusicologist Bonnie Wade, “Residing beyond the constraints of the
traditional music practices … in which he would have had to continue had he remained in
Japan, the young man began to compose music, even a little nontraditionally, that is,
leaning toward Western music.” He composed his first work, Mizu no hentai (Metamorphosis
of Water), in 1909.
At age eighteen, he was elevated to the rank of kengyō, the highest rank to be achieved
among blind musicians, establishing his mastery of traditional Japanese musical style and
technique. In 1913, he married and took the name by which he is known today.
In 1917, he returned to Japan, and began the study of European music theory, composition,
violin, and piano; in 1920, he and Seifu Yoshida began the New Japanese Music Movement
in which they adapted European musical elements into compositions to be played by
traditional Japanese instruments. Miyagi’s primary instrument was the zoku-so, or 13-string
koto and in 1921, he invented a 17-string koto (jushichigen). He also experimented with an
80-string koto and a large bowed instrument called the kokyu. He introduced the Western
practice of chamber music into the Japanese tradition.
In 1925, he participated in one of the first radio presentations in Japan, and in 1929,
composed his most famous piece, Haru no Umi (The Sea in Spring). Haru no umi was
originally for koto and shakuhachi, but was arranged for violin instead of shakuhachi, in
which form it was widely played by Isaac Stern.
Miyagi also had an important role as a teacher at the Tokyo Music School and the Tokyo
National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he continued to write fusion works in a
style that came to be known as shin nihon ongaku (new Japanese music.) In 1948, he was
appointed a member of the Japan Art Academy. His death at the age of 62 was in a railroad
accident.
Haru no Umi, for shakuhachi and koto, was written the year before Miyagi began teaching at
the Tokyo School of Music. From the beginning of the 20th century on, many pieces of koto
music had been composed in connection with the New Year's Imperial Poetry Competition,
which was devoted to a different subject every year. For the competition of 1930, the subject
was "Seaside Rock." Miyagi composed Haru no umi for it, attempting to express in music
the impressions of a boat trip he made several years earlier through the Inland Sea in
springtime. It, in the genre of Shinkyoku, became internationally popular in 1932, when
Miyagi recorded it with French violinist Renée Chemet (who transcribed the shakuhachi part
for violin.) The sea in the title is Japan’s Inland Sea, which Miyagi saw as a child, before
losing his sight.
The work, which has now been adopted for many Western instruments, is in ternary form:
the first part, Andante, is evocative of seagulls playing on the waves; one hears the ripples
against the side of the boat and the calls of seagulls overhead. The central section, Allegro,
is a sea song, celebrating the joy of spring and perhaps suggesting the fishing boats being
vigorously rowed. In this section, Miyagi blends Western and Eastern harmonies. The last
part returns to reprise the first part with variations on its soft mood of spring. Motifs that
evoke the swell of waves and shore birds’ warbling occur throughout the work.
Sextet for koto, shakuhachi and string quartet (World Première, a
Kyo-Shin-An Arts commission). . .Yoko Sato
(Born August 27, 1971)
Yoko Sato received her Ph.D. in Music with an emphasis in composition from the University
of Hawai‘i, Manoa in 2014, where she was the recipient of the East-West Center Graduate
Degree Fellowship. She continues her association with the Center for Reconciliation at the
Duke Divinity School, where she conducted her dissertation research.
Based in Tokyo, composer Yoko Sato’s creative activities are focused on exploring
intercultural musical elements and aesthetics while expanding the repertoire of
contemporary music for traditional Japanese instruments. She has collaborated with many
of Japan’s most prominent hōgaku (Japanese traditional music) musicians and ensembles
and maintains an active career with a steady stream of commissions and performances from
an extensive network of colleagues located throughout the globe.
A prolific composer of music for the theater, she has composed several operettas
commissioned by regional governments to promote musical activities for local Japanese
communities. Her current research interests focus on using musical exchange to enhance
mutual understanding and cultivate meaningful relationships among people in different
cultures and societies.
The composer has provided the following about the new work, Between the Leaves for
Shakuhachi, 13-string Koto and String Quartet.
“Sunlight filtering through dark foliage creates various patterns of dappled light, which –
slowly or suddenly – varies from moment to moment. Even under a dense canopy of leaves,
a ray of light can produce beautiful reflections. Light, as well as shade, contributes to the
growth of plants and trees, indeed, to their ability to thrive, and to the depth of gradation of
color in a garden.
“Between the Leaves consists of three parts. In the first part, the shakuhachi and strings
provide a gentle musical flow, while the koto adds subtle shading to the entire sonority with
quarter-tones. The second part begins with a meditative mood in the shakuhachi, whose
melodic lines largely consist of a minor pentatonic scale. In contrast, a traditional rice
planting song from the town of Namie, Fukushima, is also briefly quoted, which uses a major
pentatonic scale. This leads to a duet for koto and shakuhachi, followed by a lively section
joined by the strings. In the last part, the koto drastically changes the tuning, providing a
brighter diatonic sound. After the strings fade away, the koto and shakuhachi conclude the
piece, suggesting long rays of sunlight reaching into a shady garden.”
QUINQUEVALENCE Ⅱ for Clarinet and String Quartet. . .
Shin-ichiro Ikebe
(Born September 15, 1943 in Mito, Japan)
Shin-ichiro Ikebe graduated from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where
he also did graduate work. While there, he studied composition with Tomojiro Ikenouchi,
Akio Yashiro, Akira Miyoshi and Jyou Shimaoka. He won the first prize for composition at
the 35th Japan Music Competition in 1966 and came in first place for Ongaku-no-tomo
Company’s Chamber Music Contest that same year.
Ikebe has composed many orchestral pieces, chamber music, works for Japanese
instruments, choral pieces, musicals and modern dance pieces and also many incidental
music pieces for various movies and TV dramas.
He has received numerous awards including the Salzburg TV Opera Festival Award for
Death Goddess (1971), the Italian Broadcasting Corporation (RAI) Prize (3 times),
International Emmy Awards for Carmen (1989), the prize for excellence in the Fine Arts
Festival (4 times) and the Otaka Award for Symphony IV in 1991 as well as Les Bois Tristes
for orchestra in 1999.
In 1997 he received the Arima Award from the NHK Symphony Orchestra; in 2002 the 53rd
Broadcasting Culture Award and the 1st Sagawa Yoshio Music Promotion Award in 2003. In
2011, he received the Yokohama Cultural Awards, and in 2015, the Himeji Cultural Award.
For film music, he has received the Mainichi Film Music Award three times and the music
award for excellence in the Japanese Academy Award nine times. He also received the
Purple Ribbon Medal in 2004 from the Japanese government.
Ikebe also produces and manages many public concerts and has published essays.
Currently he is the Musical Director of the Tokyo Opera City Cultural Foundation, Musical
Director of western music for the Ishikawa Ongakudo, Musical Director of the Setagaya
Cultural Foundation, and the Director of the Yokohama Minato Mirai Hall.
He is also a visiting professor of the Tokyo College of Music.
Ikebe wrote QUINQUEVALENCE for Piano, Violin, Viola, Violoncello and Double Bass in
1991. Included in his chamber-music oeuvre are many pieces with the title ending in
“valence”. He notes he wrote six “MONO VALENCE” for solo instruments, eleven
“BIVALENCE” for two instruments, two “TRIVALENCE” for three instruments and two
“QUATREVALENCE” for four instruments, as well as eleven “STRATA” for various
instruments.
In “QUINQUEVALENCE II” Ikebe expresses his hope to have written “deep and strong
situations” for the ensemble of five instruments, noting his music in this work is not
descriptive of anything extramusical, but just absolute music.
Shin-ichiro Ikebe also notes that he played clarinet during his teenage years, and this
experience gave him a special feeling for the instrument.
The piece was composed with “many thanks to Oskar, my important friend.”
…AND BEETHOVEN
String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132 . . .
Ludwig Van Beethoven
(Born December 16, 1770, in Bonn; died March 26, 1827, in Vienna)
Between 1816 and 1826, Beethoven composed a series of extraordinary masterpieces: his
Symphony No. 9 and Missa Solemnis, five piano sonatas and the five string quartets with
opus numbers 127 to 135. Just before these works began to appear, his output had been
slim, for the compositions of his middle years had exhausted the possibilities of the classical
forms that he had inherited from Haydn and Mozart. His final works were to require new
subjects, new forms and new powers of creation.
Beethoven’s last quartets have such great density, combining concentration and tension
with great weight, that they puzzled musicians for generations. The technical and
interpretative difficulties they presented were usually blamed on the composer’s deafness.
Early critics thought that during his years without hearing, Beethoven had lost touch with
musical reality, yet we now believe that deafness liberated him from concern for common
practicality and freed his imagination for greater invention.
Beethoven composed the Quartet, Op. 132, in 1825 as part of a group of three dedicated to
his faithful supporter, Prince Nikolas Galitzin, who organized the first performance of the
Missa Solemnis, Op. 123, in St. Petersburg in 1824. Its premiere took place on November
6, 1825 with the Schuppanzigh Quartet performing. Galitzin’s fortunes had begun to fall, and
he paid for only one quartet, but Beethoven and Galitzin’s correspondence reveals much
about their relationship. It was no ordinary thing, in those days, for a Russian prince, even
one on the decline, to address a commoner as “Dear and Respected Monsieur van
Beethoven.”
This work enlarges the quartet structure to five movements, and begins with a freely
expanded sonata form, Allegro, which opens with a slow introduction, Assai sostenuto.
Commentators have long noted that the opening angular theme has a strikingly similar
shape to the main subject of the Grosse Fuge and to the opening fugue theme of the Op.
131 quartet. One commentator, Erich Schenk, demonstrated that it derives from a thematic
configuration used in the Baroque period symbolizing feelings like pain, sorrow and even
preparedness for death. The second movement, Allegro ma non tanto, is a lively scherzolike intermezzo in moderate tempo with a contrasting middle section that has a rustic
character and is dominated by drone basses.
Beethoven, who had been very ill that spring, headed the chorale theme of the third
movement, “A Convalescent’s Sacred Song of Thanks to the Divinity, in the Lydian Mode”
(“Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen tonart”). In this
double-variation form movement, Beethoven employs modal harmony, which produces an
antique and religious atmosphere. When the initial slow and unearthly section, Molto
Adagio, becomes Andante, it gathers more motion and a contrasting almost dance-like
rhythm, to which Beethoven commented, “Feeling new strength.” Passages in the two tempi
alternate. Beethoven marked the measures that begin the last Molto Adagio section “with
the greatest inner emotion.”
The first violin connects the contrasting fourth movement, a brief march, Alla Marcia, assai
vivace, to the rondo finale, Allegro appassionato with a kind of recitative. Barry Cooper, one
of Beethoven’s more recent biographers, mentions that Beethoven regarded the recitative
as a separate movement and referred to the quartet as having six movements. Beethoven
based the fifth movement, described by his biographer Solomon as an “urgent, floating waltz
melody… an etherealization and dancing fulfillment of the ‘Feeling New Strength’ section”
on a long, elegant melody he had once considered for his Ninth Symphony. Contrasting
episodes and a unique development of great force and intensity reign, until a long coda,
Presto, brings the quartet to a close.