Walking Kuniyuki Takahashi

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}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 211 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 144 Mb
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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.

Peter Garland (b. 1952) - The Birthday Party - Aki Takahashi (2017) {New World Records 80788-2 Digital Download}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44kHz - Official Digital Download -> 180 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 154 Mb
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© 2017 New World Records | 80788-2
Classical / Modern Classical / Piano

On first hearing, the piano music of Peter Garland (b. 1952) creates a feeling of dislocation, then astonishment: It is so very different from the contemporary concert music we are familiar with. The composer's intent, his emotional directness is immediate - despite the unusual sound world and different sense of time that these pieces exhibit. Time itself appears to be suspended, and rhythm, melody and harmony are transformed into quite different entities in a universe parallel to our own - as accessible but not quite of it.

This album is a Rachmaninoff piano duo album by Miku Omine, who has made Rachmaninoff his life's work and whose performances and album are highly acclaimed, and Takako Takahashi, who won 5th place at the 12th International Chopin Piano Competition. In a live recording held at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan on October 20, 2023, two suites by Rachmaninoff, which can be said to be the pinnacle of two-piano works, and a suite of Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty" arranged by Rachmaninoff for duet were recorded.

Written two years before his death in 1987, Morton Feldman's Piano and String Quartet is a shimmering, pristine musical event. Contrasting Aki Takahashi's widely-spaced piano arpeggios with Kronos Quartet's extended chords, Feldman allows lingering sounds from either the piano or the strings to haze over many of the piece's near-silences. Kronos plays their parts with tremulous fragility, often making pointedly clear the viola's musical valley between the leading violins and the trailing cello. By the time Feldman composed this piece, he was deeply committed to extended works—chamber pieces that could telescope motifs and worry their tonality so that it warbled between hauntingly atonal and familiarly tonal singing.

Amazon.com Review