Walking Kuniyuki Takahashi

Aki Takahashi - A Valentine Out of Seasons (1976) {Eastworld Japan CC33-3322, Black Triangle rel 1985}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 183 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 128 Mb
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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.

H.Takahashi, Tokyo based Architect and sound designer. ‘Low Power’ draws strands of Minimalism from the Japanese Minimalist works from the likes of Hiroshi Yoshimura and Satoshi Ashikawa, to masters such as Erik Satie and John Cage, and Ambient leaders Brian Eno and Roedelius. His sound sometimes seems to be drizzling like rain, but still the feeling of refreshing sounds sinks pleasantly inside the body like a shower bathed after running 100 meters with full power. A genuine melody gives a feeling that drifts in the water. The philosophy of simple timbre composition and placement makes feel the composition of the Japanese garden and the minimalism of Sen no Rikyu.

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.

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.

This is a handsome-looking compact disc release, with strikingly muted graphics in cool purple tones, featuring Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer and Japanese harpist Naoko Yoshina. Here the pretty graphics go a little too far: the buyer finds no listing of compositions on the outside of the package and has no way of knowing what is played aside from a bare mention of the names of the 11 composers featured. That's where the All Classical Guide comes in. The works were all written in the twentieth century. They are: Michio Miyagi's Haru no umi (Ocean in Spring, a calming, melodic piece); Kaija Saariaho's Nocturne for violin solo (a somewhat avant-garde coloristic piece); Toru Takemitsu's Stanza II for harp and tape (also pretty far out and very Japanese-sounding); Yuji Takahashi's Insomnia for violin, voices, and kugo (strange, but oddly soothing); a movement from Satie's Le fils des étoiles as arranged by Takahashi (austere); Jean Françaix's Five Little Duets (100 percent charming); the Étude for violin from Richard Strauss's Daphne (also charming); Six Melodies by John Cage (simple and pleasant); Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel (even simpler and not startling); Nino Rota's love theme from The Godfather (you know this one); and the final movement from Schnittke's Suite in the Old Style (gently Classical except for one deliberately horrendous dissonance).