Takashi Yoshimatsu - Memo Flora (Kyoko Tabe; Sachio Fujioka)

Information

Composer: Takashi Yoshimatsu

• Piano Concerto 'Memo Flora', Op. 67
• And Birds Are Still ..., Op. 72
• While an Angel Falls into a Doze ..., Op. 73
• Dream Colored Mobile II, Op. 58a
• White Landscapes, Op. 47a

Kyoko Tabe, piano

Manchester Camerata

Sachio Fujioka, conductor

Date: 1998

Label: Chandos

https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%209652

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Review

Plato had this notion that musical innovation is full of danger, that when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of State always change with them. The idea fits well with our closing millennium and its attendant psychological crises, and helps explain the attraction of a soothing ‘new lyricism’ based on euphonious laurels that were crafted earlier on in our century – by Debussy, Ravel, Delius, Scriabin, Richard Strauss, Finzi and many others.

Takashi Yoshimatsu – billed as Chandos’s “Composer in Residence” – is a self-confessed ‘new lyricist’; he airbrushes a seductive array of sounds, cueing an oboe here, a harp or solo violin there, invariably from a comfortable cushion of string tone and (for at least two of the pieces in this programme) with an insistently simple piano part colouring the mix. Casual, uncritical listening may well yield a measure of delight, especially after a hard day’s work; but if you are on the look-out for something thoughtful, original or challenging, then this CD is definitely not for you.

We are told that Yoshimatsu “decries unmusical trends in modern music”, though I would like to know how he defines ‘musical’. He apparently had the idea of composing “a beautiful piano concerto in the same key, the same three-part form and the same double-wind arrangement” as Mozart’s K595. Well, if Yoshimatsu’s concerto is “beautiful”, I hesitate to think what that makes Mozart’s B flat … though the filigree woodwind writing in the “Flower” first movement, delicate wind chimes in the “Petals” Andante and vigorous, jig-like finale have their own modest charms. True, the orchestral pieces do occasionally stir (Dream Coloured Mobile II is the most attractive of them), but more often they languish in cosy aural contentment. I’d call it escapist mood music, designed primarily to conjure a sympathetic dream-world. Nothing more to say, really, save that the performances and recordings seem generally beyond criticism and that the mood set at the beginning of the programme extends more or less for the duration. A New Age-style experience, then, utterly palatable, pleasantly relaxing but ultimately ephemeral.

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Takashi Yoshimatsu (born 18 March 1953 in Tokyo) is a Japanese composer. He studied at the Department of Technology of Keio University and taught himself composition, although he has studied under Teizo Matsumura for a short while. Yoshimatsu made his debut as a composer with Threnody to Toki in 1981. Since then, he has composed six symphonies, twelve concertos, a number of sonatas, and various shorter pieces for ensembles of various sizes, including for Japanese traditional instruments. Since 1998, Yoshimatsu has been composer-in-residence of Chandos Records and has published several albums under this label.

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Kyoko Tabe (born 26 March 1967 in Muroran, Hokkaido) is a Japanese pianist. In 1984 she won first place at the 53rd Japan Music Competition, becoming the youngest person to do so. She went on to study at Tokyo University of the Arts and the Universität der Künste Berlin. Since 1990, Tabe has been active in Japan, giving recitals all over the country and performing with major orchestras. She is also very active in recording, with more than 20 albums for such labels as DENON and Chandos. She has served as a professor at the Ueno Gakuen University, and is currently teaching at the Toho Gakuen School of Music.

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Sachio Fujioka (born 8 June 1962 in Tokyo) is a Japanese conductor. He graduated from the Department of Literature of Keio University and the conducting department of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Following his debut with the BBC Philharmonic in 1993, Fujioka has since appeared with the orchestra at the BBC Proms and has also made a number of recordings for Chandos Records. He has served as Principal Conductor of the Manchester Chamber Orchestra (1995–2000), the Japan Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra (1995–2002), and the Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra (since 2007).

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