Walking Kuniyuki Takahashi

"What Western musical forms have become is a paraphrase of memory. But memory could operate otherwise as well. In Triadic Memories, […], there is a section of different types of chords where each chord is slowly repeated. One chord might be repeated three times, another, seven or eight - depending on how long I felt it should go on. Quite soon into a new chord I would forget the reiterated chord before it. I then reconstructed the entire section: rearranging its earlier progression and changing the number of times a particular chord was repeated. This way of working was a conscious attempt at "formalizing" a disorientation of memory. Chords are heard repeated without any discernible pattern. In this regularity (though there are slight gradations of tempo) there is a suggestion that what we hear is functional and directional, but we soon realize that this is an illusion; a bit like walking the streets of Berlin - where all the buildings look alike, even if they're not."

Morton Feldman, "Crippled Symmetry," Res (Autumn 1981)

Known for drawing unusual sonorities from conventional instruments, Xenakis strangely left the piano's potential for novel sounds unexplored. In these works, Xenakis stays on the keyboard without so much as a plucked string or any use of gadgetry to alter the instrument's sound. Although that might make these pieces appear less radical, even "safe," Xenakis exploits every other option available.

Aki Takahashi - Piano Space (1973) {3CD Set EMI Japan QIAG-50035~37 rel 2009}
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© 1972-73, 2009 Angel Records / Tower Records / EMI Classics Japan | QIAG-50035~37
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Avant-Garde / Piano

Aki Takahashi made her public debut shortly after graduating from the Tokyo University of Arts with a masters degree in 1970. While acknowledged for her classical musicianship, her enthusiasm and acclaim as a new music interpreter have attracted the attention of many composers. Cage, Feldman, Takemitsu, Yun, Oliveros, Ruders, Satoh, Lucier and Garland, to name a few, have all created works for her.

Aki Takahashi - Four Walls: Aki Takahashi Plays John Cage (2004) {Camerata CM-28027}
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© 2004 Camerata Tokyo | CM-28027
Classical / Contemporary

John Cage's austere Four Walls was composed in 1944 for Merce Cunningham's dance play of the previous year, and marks the beginning of a long and productive collaboration between the two artists. Except for the dance's structure, which was carefully planned in advance, Cage's music operated fairly independently of Cunningham's choreography, and its strictly timed sections alternated between fragmentary, song-like passages in modal harmony and aggressive bursts of expanding and contracting patterns, often in bare octaves.

Aki Takahashi - A Valentine Out of Seasons (1976) {Eastworld Japan CC33-3322, Black Triangle rel 1985}
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© 1976, 1985 Eastworld / Toshiba-EMI Japan | CC33-3322
Classical / Neo Classical / Contemporary Classical / Piano

Aki Takahashi made her public debut shortly after graduating from the Tokyo University of Arts with a masters degree in 1970. While acknowledged for her classical musicianship, her enthusiasm and acclaim as a new music interpreter have attracted the attention of many composers. Cage, Feldman, Takemitsu, Yun, Oliveros, Ruders, Satoh, Lucier and Garland, to name a few, have all created works for her.

Yūji Takahashi is a composer, pianist, critic, conductor, and author. Yuji Takahashi studied under Roh Ogura and Minao Shibata at the Toho Gakuen School of Music. In 1960, he made his debut as a pianist by performing Bo Nilsson's Quantitäten. He received a grant from The Ford Foundation to study in West Berlin under Iannis Xenakis in 1962 and stayed in Europe until 1966, also stayed in New York under Rockefeller Foundation scholarship until 1972. He founded 'Suigyu Gakudan' (Water Buffalo band) in 1978 as introducing international protest songs, starting from Thailand, mainly performing Asian songs, also published monthly journal 'Suigyu Tsushin'.

Morton Feldman - Triadic Memories - Aki Takahashi (1989) {ALM Records Japan ALCD-33 rec 1983}
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© 1989 ALM Records / Kojima Recordings Japan | ALCD-33
Classical / Modern Classical / Avant-Garde / Minimalism / Solo Piano

Avant-garde music professor Morton Feldman casts the listener into a black web of trigonometry in this Japanese import, recorded in 1981. Heavily influenced by John Cage and abstract-expressionist painter Philip Guston, the composer typically spreads out a blanket of notes in a pointillistic style, giving the performer the additional challenge – or privilege – of putting their self-expression on the line. It's said that Shakespeare sinks or swims depending on the skill of the actor, and pianist Aki Takahashi is just such a performer.