Hisato Ohzawa - Piano Concerto No. 3; Symphony No. 3 (Ekaterina Saranceva; Dmitry Yablonsky)

Information

Composer: Hisato Ohzawa

• Piano Concerto No. 3 in A-Flat Major, "Kamikaze"
• Symphony No. 3, "Symphony of the Founding of Japan"

Ekaterina Saranceva, piano

Russian Philharmonic Orchestra

Dmitry Yablonsky, conductor

Date: 2005

Label: Naxos

https://www.naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=8.557416

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Review

This disc is a treat. “Kamikazi”, in case you are interested, means “wind of God” and refers to a civilian aircraft launched in 1938, and not to the later WWII suicide dive-bombers. Hisato Ohzawa (1907-53) had a remarkable pedigree. He was a graduate of the New England Conservatory; among his teachers were Sessions, Converse, and Schoenberg; he later studied in Paris with Roussel and Boulanger, and the confluence of modernist, French, and American (i.e. jazz) elements is plainly audible in both of the works on offer here. His return to Japan was not propitious: stylistically he was in advance of the musical culture of the day, and his sudden death from a cerebral hemorrhage after the war ensured his descent into musical oblivion.

Nevertheless, he was a fine composer in a style that sounds remarkably like Antheil or Finland’s Einar Englund. The “Kamikaze” Concerto is much more than that, particularly when the central Andante introduces the Ravel G major Concerto to Gershwin’s Concerto in F, courtesy of a solo saxophone that neither of those composers remembered to include. It’s a breezy, beautifully written work full of memorable ideas (though the ending is shockingly abrupt), and Ekaterina Saranceva plays it extremely well. Exactly what the Third Symphony has to do with the founding of Japan is difficult to fathom, despite the presence of some more overtly oriental musical motifs (which never strike the ear as stylistically incongruous) as compared to the concerto. This is simply a big, colorful, confident showpiece of the sort that Koussevitsky (a supporter for whom Ohzawa wrote a double bass concerto) surely would have enjoyed commissioning and performing.

The Russian Philharmonic under Dmitry Yablonsky plays both works very well considering how unfamiliar they must have been. Yes, the brass sound a touch rough, and there are some moments of rhythmic unsteadiness in the strings, but the energy of the conducting and the quality of the music come through loud and (sonically) clear. Without doubt, this is one of the more interesting and rewarding issues in Naxos’ ongoing exploration of 20th century Japanese classical music. Ohzawa is a real find.

-- David Hurwitz

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Hisato Ohzawa (August 1, 1907—October 28, 1953) was a Japanese composer and conductor. He grew up in Kobe, studying piano, organ and choral singing. During the 1930s, Ohzawa studied in Boston and Paris under Frederick Converse, Roger Sessions, Arnold Schoenberg, Paul Dukas and Nadia Boulanger. He returned to Japan in 1936, where his works were met with mixed reactions, being technically too difficult for Japanese orchestras of the time. After the Second World War, Ohzawa taught at the Kobe College, composing light music and jazzy concertos. There has been wide neglect of his work since his sudden death in 1953.

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Dmitry Yablonsky (born 1962) is a Russian classical cellist and conductor. He studied with Lorne Munroe and Zara Nelsova at the Juilliard School of Music, and with Aldo Parisot at Yale University. As a cellist he has played in such venues as Carnegie Hall, La Scala, Moscow Great Hall, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Hall, Taiwan National Hall, Teatre Mogador, Cite de la Musique, and Louvre. For several years Yablonsky has been Principal Guest Conductor of Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. He has made more than 70 recordings as conductor and cellist for Naxos, Erato-Warner, Chandos, Belair Music, Sonora, Connoisseur Society.

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