Hashimoto: Symphony No. 1 / Symphonic Suite

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Cat No: 8555881

Release Date: 01 August 2003

Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 747313588121

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: HASHIMOTO

Description
Qunihico Hashimoto (1904-1949) Symphony No. 1 Symphonic Suite \Heavenly Maiden andFishermanQunihico Hashimoto was one of the leading Japanese composersin the first half of the twentieth century. He showed a chameleon-like talent,commanding a variety of styles including romanticism, impressionism,nationalism, jazz and atonality. He was also active as a violinist, anaccompanist, conductor and educator, but his career was marked by tragedy,through the vagaries of politics and war.Hashimoto was born on 14th September, 1904, in Tokyo. Whenhe was still young, his family moved to Osaka, where he came to know westernmusic, playing in the school band at elementary school. At his secondary schoolhe studied the violin with Kichinosuke Tsuji, the most renowned teacher then inOsaka, but he gradually turned his interests towards composing rather thanperformance. In 1923 he entered Tokyo Music School, the present Tokyo NationalUniversity of Fine Arts and Music, an establishment with the best facilitiesfor studying western music, although his major study was the violin andconducting, as the school had no composition faculty before the first half ofthe 1930s. Composition students had to look for teachers elsewhere or to teachthemselves. Apart from occasionally studying with Kiyoshi Nobutoki, a pupil ofGeorg Schumann in Berlin, Hashimoto acquired his ability as a composervirtually unaided. He was also a proficient pianist.Establishing himself as a popular composer in the latterhalf of the 1920s, Hashimoto produced a variety of concert songs. His piecesKabi (Mould) and Hanmyo (Tiger Beetle) were epoch-making in their demonstrationof a Japanese composer's command of the French Impressionists' sense ofharmony. Chansons like Okashi-to-Musume (Cakes and a Girl) caught the heart ofurban people who longed for the modern culture of Paris. Folk-song-like simplepieces Fujisan-Mitara (Looking at Mount Fuji) and Taue-Uta (Rice Planting Song)evoked nostalgia among those living in big cities, who, in the rapid course ofurbanisation, had been obliged to move there from the country. Mai (Dance)succeeded in creating a Japanese version of Schoenberg's Sprechstimme bytransferring the Joruri style, with its blend of songs and narrative, to anordinary song style with piano accompaniment. The atonal elements in the pianopart of Mai led to his reputation in Japan as an avant-garde composer. Duringthis period Hashimoto, like Kurt Weill in Berlin, strove to break down thebarrier between classical and popular music by his intensive work on songs forfilm, commercials, records and broadcasting, as well as writing jazz songs,while introducing Alois Haba's microtonal music, such as his 1930 Etude forViolin and Cello, and composing impressionistic pieces for piano and orchestra.He enjoyed a reputation as an enfant terrible, but at the same time he had tobe a representative of rigorous academicism, when he assumed the position ofprofessor at the Tokyo Music School. He responded perfectly to thi
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