Takashi Asahina Beethove

Takashi Asahina was born in Tokyo on July 9, 1908. In June 1927 he listened to a concert of the New Symphony Orchestra (the present NHK Symphony Orchestra) with Emanuel Metter, a Russian conductor who took refuge in Japan. Kalinnikov's First Symphony, conducted by Metter, was full of the atmosphere of nineteenth-century romanticism and impressed him deeply…

The sound of these Philips remasterings is very good for being almost fifty years old, and though the recording, true to its origins in the early 60's, is fairly closely mic'ed it is never too much. The various instrument sections are remarkably well defined.

Japanese label Triton has released a Pascal Rogé album with a rather remarkable program; Crystal Dream features the eminent French pianist in a program that interweaves short piano pieces by Erik Satie with others written by contemporary Japanese composer Takashi Yoshimatsu, mostly pieces drawn from his Pleiades Dances. Both composers employ relatively simple melodic concepts harmonized with elegant, though elemental, kinds of accompaniments, so perhaps the combination makes sense. On the other hand, Satie never lived into the age of rock-based pop music, his engagement with the popular consisting mainly of French music hall tunes, and later in life, a sort of half-understood perception of ragtime rhythm. Yoshimatsu, however, would not be Yoshimatsu if it weren't for his strong connection to pop, though admittedly in Satie's case the pop group Blood, Sweat & Tears' adaptation of his Gymnopédie No. 1 once earned Satie a Grammy-winning single. Either way, one might wonder "how does this combination-slash-conversation work?"