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Nanae

Nanae

Yoshimura Nanae
Camerata - 25CM-189
1990

Track Title Kanji Length Artist
1  Play Button Kamu Ogi Guoto 神招琴 12'17 Koto: Yoshimura Nanae
Koto has the oldest origin in the Asian instruments. It appears "forbidden" in "explanatory sentence"; "forbidden" meant sacred places to worship god. Koto is also the instrument inviting god. In Kojiki, there is a description that the Empress Shinko became a shrine maiden and the Emperor Chuai played the koto to return god in our country, too. This 20-stringed koto, the new style, prizes old gods, so I hope its sounds will be more colorful (from the program of the first performance in 1989, Sep.)

Kamu-Ogi-Guoto was composed for Nanae Yoshimura's recital last year. I was little worried about the new style instrument, 20-stringed koto, but I was able to get many suggestions by Yoshimura's spiritual centripetal performance. For this recital, I added and cut some parts to clear Yoshimura's beautiful consciousness.
2  Play Button Nanae 七重 11'44 Koto: Yoshimura Nanae
The composer states that the title of this work came to him when he struck upon an unusual tuning of the Koto for this piece. Of the twenty-one strings, Two groups of seven strings (strings 4 to 10 and strings 11 to 17) and tuned in parallel to produce identical pitches. In other words, there are seven duplicated pitches in the tuning. Hence the title literally "seven-fold". By having these duplicated pitches the impression can be created of listening to a duet, although the instrumentalist is of course playing alone. The composer's intention is to make use of this effect in various ways throughout the piece, and he often uses the parallel strings indirectly in order to obtain the effect of sympathetic vibration. The work demands enormous energy to perform: the difficult closing section with its long fast-moving passages stretches the performer's endurance to the limit.
3  Play Button Cosmos Haptic No. 3 - Kokuh 内触覚的宇宙 第三番 虚空 13'59 Shakuhachi: Mitsuhashi Kifu
Koto: Yoshimura Nanae
There is an inevitable problem for composers to confront in a composition for traditional Japanese instruments namely the relationship between creation and tradition. Creation originally means to produce something new, free from conventional confinement. However, it is almost impossible to utilize an instrument without engaging in the historical establishment of characteristic techniques specific to the instrument. Consequently, composers face the antimony of striving for original creation while holding traditional convention in high esteem.

This composition represents a meeting of two ideas: cosmos haptic, one of the sources of my musical imagination, and mumyo (obscure lightness) as exemplified in "Kokuh Reibo", a piece of authentic Shakuhachi music. It may be said that it is a musical commitment to the cosmic unconsciousness which Dr. Daisetsu Suzuki teaches.

I have known both Kifu Mitsuhashi and Nanae Yoshimura since the Pacific Music Festival held in New Zealand several years ago. Their enthusiasm for new music, their active communication in the international scene, and their refreshingly charming personalities led me to compose this piece for them.

I intended to express my aspiration to the infinite depth of kuh: empty space, the sky.
4  Play Button Coloration-Project III 彩色計画3 13'20 Koto: Yoshimura Nanae
This work was composed last year for Nanae Yoshimura with excellent musicality and performing possibility, and one of my favorite solo pieces; in the first place performed with the success coming up to my expectation by her.

But in the place refused to indulge in the feeling, who can reproduce except her, strictly and strongly in music with detailed instructions of pronounced method and so on? When I was present at the first performance, I knew this work would be one of the works for Yoshimura for some time.

I think a work becomes independent as a composition, away from the composer, by playing again and again. Therefore, her performance is my best rapture as a composer.

To explain a little about the work itself, though it's composed by an accumulation of fragmentations having relatively simple sound-shape, it's prosaic without its climax, and soon the unsparing progress makes a space and spreads out. And then, it’s supposed to introduce two supplements and gives the end to the work. The title design doesn't mean making various colors, but how to use the prepared colors. And in this case, "the color" is "the different cultural degree" of materials.
5  Play Button Moyura - Complete もゆらの五ツ 14'56 Koto: Yoshimura Nanae
"Moyura" is an archaic word which means "sound", for examples "Tamayura" means "Tama-Moyura" I sounds like a jewel. This work is composed by the five pieces: key (theme), fast
(Allegro), ream (intermezzo), slow (Adagio), and dance. There are five scenes which have such a sound-creak; a, faint hope that a man could have, despair like a dry dream, transparent resignation, and a far anxiety; and then their fragments touch trees and strum on the strings. Or they all can be described in one, birth to death. In the pause of each chapter, the bell is rung, and after finishing five bells all is over.

From spring to fait in 1990, this work was composed for Nanae Yoshimura's 20-stringed koto. It's a small tapestry between the first symphony composed in spring and the second one being written now.

At first. I thought of the work consisting of seven pieces which title was "septet" (means the work Nanae plays), but gave up in would not be as a witty joke as Nishimura's. After all, I feel it gets only a ghost-secession by being possessed somewhat strange mode. I leave the rest to Nanae's musicality.