Ichiyanagi Toshi - Pianist Toshi Ichiyanagi - Japan CD

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Ichiyanagi Toshi

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Toshi Ichiyanagi, one of Japan's leading composers, is also, needless to say, a pianist. I have gathered together records of performances in which his skills as a performer were on full display, including "Piano Music No. 8," newly created more than half a century after his masterpiece "Piano Music No. 1-7," composed in the 1950s and early 1960s, and his improvisation on a prepared piano in a gallery setting, a masterful performance reminiscent of David Tudor, with whom he shares a deep resonance as a pianist. The cool-headedness of this masterful performance reminds me of David Tudor, with whom I share a deep resonance as a pianist. In both performances, electronic music engineer and performer Junju Arima (Arima Mihisa), with whom he has often collaborated, adds electronic modulations. A rare sound recording of him playing Silvano Busotti's 1959 work "Five Piano Pieces for David Tudor," written for that Tudor, has also been unearthed! It appears to have been played in his younger days, and it is a very sharp performance.1. Silvano Bussotti: No. 3 from Five Piano Pieces for David Tudor / composed in 1959 Among a huge number of cassette tapes left by the late Kuniharu Akiyama, a music critic and husband of pianist Aki Takahashi, there are two recordings of this work. One is labeled only as Toshi Ichiyanagi, the other as D. Tudor. They do not appear to be related, except that the music is the same. Perhaps Akiyama focused his compilation on this work for use as a teaching aid at universities and other institutions. The cassette does not specify which of the five small pieces he played. Since Busotti often composed his music in pictorial, graphic notation, it is difficult to tell which piece he played at first hearing, but Aki Takahashi, who has the score, said that he thought it was No. 3. Ichiyanagi did not seem to have any recollection of this recording, but he explained that if he played it, it was probably at NHK or Sogetsu Art Center.Toshi Ichiyanagi: Piano Music No. 8 / premiered in 2012The seven pieces of "Piano Music" were all composed between the late 1950s and early 1960s and performed by Ichiyanagi himself, David Tudor, Yuji Takahashi, etc. In 2011, Takuji Kawai performed and recorded all the pieces together for the first time (CD on OMEGA POINT). The "Eighth," which was premiered on September 8, 2012 at the "14 Evenings" event held at the National Museum of Modern Art, was conceived at the same time as the other "Piano Music" pieces. In addition to the symbolic elements such as figures and words used in "1" through "7," an attempt was made to introduce "de-symbolic" elements beyond notation, and only the temporal flow of the performance, including spatial sound expression, is presented. As in the premiere, Junju Arima provides electronic assistance. The recording was made at Ichiyanagi's 80th anniversary concert at the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan Small Hall on January 15, 2014.Toshi Ichiyanagi: Improvisation at Katsumi Asaba Exhibition / 2009Graphic designer and art director Katsumi Asaba's exhibition "Port of Design: Katsumi Asaba Exhibition" was held at Kanagawa Kenmin Hall Gallery in 2009. Katsumi Asaba Exhibition. The exhibition was held at the Kenmin Hall Gallery during the exhibition period. This performance was held on July 20, during the exhibition period, at the exhibition site, where Ichiyanagi played the Tongpa script, which Asaba had studied, on a prepared piano as if it were sheet music. The Tongpa script is a hieroglyphic script that has been handed down from ancient times to the present among the Naxi people, a minority tribe in northern Yunnan Province, China. Arima modulated them with a computer.