Matsudaira: Bugaku Dance Suite / Theme and Variations for Piano and Orchestra

Featuring

Ken Takaseki
Ichiro Nodaira
Osaka Century Orchestra
Yoritsune Matsudaira

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Notable Performances

Herbert von Karajan conducted Matsudaira's 'Theme and Variations for piano and orchestra' in Vienna and Tokyo, making it the only Japanese work he ever conducted.

Compositional Technique

Matsudaira developed a 'secret' skill to create transparent twelve-tone series from Gagaku's pentatonic melodies and a 'magical' technique to transform Gagaku's rhythmic structures into more complex, flexible forms.

Composer Biography

Yoritsune Matsudaira, the composer, was descended from the Shogun family who ruled Japan from 1603 to 1867, and his direct ancestry was from the first Shogun's eleventh son.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Matsudaira's interest shifted from Nanbu folk-songs to Gagaku, a traditional Japanese court music, during World War II, as he sought pre-existing material to vary and refine.

Compositional Technique

Matsudaira integrated Gagaku, a traditional Japanese court music, with dodecaphonism, serialism, and other modern Western techniques, finding its serial, pointillistic sounds suitable for abstract beauty.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Matsudaira detested nationalism and militarism, and regarded romanticism and sentimentalism as his 'hypothetical enemy,' preferring artificiality and theories over emotions.

Composition History

Matsudaira decided to become a professional musician after being strongly impressed by a six-evening concert series in Tokyo by French composer and pianist Henri Gil-Marchex in 1925.