Wada / Ifukube / Toyama: Japanese Orchestral Music

Featuring

Junichi Hirokami
Malmö SymfoniOrkester
Akira Ifukube
Karen Tanaka
Yūzō Toyama
Atsutada Otaka

Kaoru Wada

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Composition History

Akira Ifukube's Ballata Sinfonica was composed in 1943 and dedicated to his brother, who died during the Second World War while studying fluorescence.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Akira Ifukube's music is deeply rooted in the ethnic songs of the indigenous Ainu people and traditional Japanese music, earning him the title 'father of Japanese nationalistic music'.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Karen Tanaka's Prismes pour orchestre, which won the Japan Symphony Foundation Award, was inspired by optics, aiming to create 'ever-changing musical prisms' by refracting sound.

Composer Biography

Karen Tanaka, one of Japan's leading young female composers, began playing piano at age four and commenced compositional studies at age ten.

Composer Biography

Yuzo Toyama is recognized for his dual talents as both a composer and conductor, having made his conducting debut with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in 1956.

Compositional Technique

Yuzo Toyama's Symphonic Poem 'Matsura' is based on Japanese folk melodies from the Karatsu area and arranged using a collage technique, which is a specialty of Toyama's.

Composer Biography

Akira Ifukube, a leading Japanese composer, grew up in the Shaanruru highlands of Hokkaido and taught himself composition after starting violin at a young age.