My response to the Turnage was similar to that to Jenkins's 'Cantata Memoria' for the Aberfan disaster. Not just that the subject of the work addresses energy production in both cases. I wonder whether M-A was thinking of that as he wrote, though. Yes, I found it moving. Didn't know about his political views, but just hope he doesn't expect a Brechtian reaction from me, making me leap out of my deckchair to protest ...
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And the tune ends too soon for us all -
QUOTE FROM DOVERSOUL:"Other than the Japanese words sung by the children, which bits do you see (hear) as Japanese elements? And if you had not known about the work, would you have known what the language you were hearing?"
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Well, if you didn't feel that from the very first few minutes, orchestral colours and melodic shapes were often resonant of, for example, various composers on the Japanese orchestral anthologies released on Naxos, I suggest you take a listen to them. Takemitsu was in there somewhere later on too, but I'd need to hear the work again to locate precisely. But again - familiar colours, atmospheres. And there was that Mahler Song of the Earth reference, a work hardly sparing of Oriental references itself.
It is also worth emphasising that for some of us Suntory is a word redolent of great musical experiences, from the time I first heard the BBCSO live from there on tour (and on VERY excellent sounding Japanese FM). And if you've spent unhealthy amounts of time poring over Japanese music websites & buying far too many of their CDs, you also associate Suntory with conductors like Svetlanov, Wand, Von Matacic, Märkl, Karajan, on tour with their own famous b(r)ands and guest-conducting the wondrous NHKSO.
It doesn't have a lot to do with whisky really
. Or Mark-Anthony-Turnage's sense of humour. 
.
(As for the children singing Twinkle twinkle in Japanese: would I have recognised the language? Dunno really. Might have. You hear Japanese quite a bit in Sainsburys at this time of year.
What a strange question.
).
Here's a coupla reviewers who caught some of those Japanese echoes....
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Sometimes after a première, especially a lengthy and varied one, and even more especially including music which wasn't quite what you'd have expected from the composer, one becomes a little nervous of one's own and others' consistent negativity.
Listening to the work as I write (not something I like, but short of time) it's already drawing me in much more on a second listen... given the lack of interest in the next few Proms for me, and those reviews listed above as encouragement, I'll have a good old go at Hibiki after all....
In fact I'm rather looking forward to it now...
Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 17-08-17, 19:31.Comment
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JLW, I really enjoyed this.Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750Comment
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Thank you for your reply
Does this means that there are unique musical characteristics that are common in Japanese composers’ works from the late 19th century to today, not in all but enough to make it distinct? So MAT picked up some of these characteristics and incorporated into his work. To make it sound Japanese? To the benefit of whom, I wonder. Not many people, Japanese or British are as learned as you are about these things enough to be able to hear the intended effects. And where does Mahler’s Song of the Earth, a German translation of an ancient Chinese poem, come into?….orchestral colours and melodic shapes were often resonant of, for example, various composers on the Japanese orchestral anthologies released on Naxos
Why asking if you recognised the language used in a musical work so strange?
I’m afraid I didn’t think too much of the reviews of your links. One got the sex of the poet wrong and clearly knows nothing about the poem beyond the briefest publicity blurb. The other declares that she is Japanese and ‘felt some Japanese sounds’ but leaves it there. The rest could have been written by a reviewer of any nationality.
It’s good that you can dissociate this work from whisky, but I’m not surprised if the rights are reserved by the commissioner, and I’m not at all surprised either if I hear one day, bits of this work in the background of the whiskey’s advertisement on Japanese TV, maybe with reference to The BBC Proms.
サントリー if you like to be precise.Suntory
Glad to hear that you enjoyed it, BBM. It would be a terrible pity if people didn’t.Comment
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Originally posted by doversoul1 View PostThank you for your reply
Does this means that there are unique musical characteristics that are common in Japanese composers’ works from the late 19th century to today, not in all but enough to make it distinct? So MAT picked up some of these characteristics and incorporated into his work. To make it sound Japanese? To the benefit of whom, I wonder. Not many people, Japanese or British are as learned as you are about these things enough to be able to hear the intended effects. And where does Mahler’s Song of the Earth, a German translation of an ancient Chinese poem, come into?
Why asking if you recognised the language used in a musical work so strange?
I’m afraid I didn’t think too much of the reviews of your links. One got the sex of the poet wrong and clearly knows nothing about the poem beyond the briefest publicity blurb. The other declares that she is Japanese and ‘felt some Japanese sounds’ but leaves it there. The rest could have been written by a reviewer of any nationality.
It’s good that you can dissociate this work from whisky, but I’m not surprised if the rights are reserved by the commissioner, and I’m not at all surprised either if I hear one day, bits of this work in the background of the whiskey’s advertisement on Japanese TV, maybe with reference to The BBC Proms.
サントリー if you like to be precise.
Glad to hear that you enjoyed it, BBM. It would be a terrible pity if people didn’t.
Listen to Naxos "Japanese Orchestral Favourites", BIS "Japanese Orchestral Music".... Mahler's Das Lied....some orchestral Takemitsu.... then listen to Hibiki again. Come back & tell us where the Mahler quote is. Or not if you can't be bothered....
Don't see why the reviewers' nationality matters. It's their positive musical responses, and what they have to say about them, that interest me.
Sorry, but I'm bored with answering questions from someone who'd apparently rather do anything than listen... let alone listen again.
Which is exactly what I'll be doing to this intriguing work. Why not challenge yourself to do the same? (With the necessary preparations outlined above, if it's not too much of an effort.)Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 19-08-17, 08:15.Comment
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I listened to the work and heard the composer talk about it. That was enough for me about this work. I’m afraid I can’t take seriously a work of music that is based on such complete hotchpotch materials. All the same, I was interested in hearing what it was that you thought were Japanese elements but you seem unwilling to share your thoughts. Pity. My question about the Mahler’s work was not ‘where is it?’ but ‘what is it doing here?’ And about the reviewer; if a reviewer announces his/her nationality when writing about a work which has obvious reference to that nation, I’d expect this aspect to be developed in the writing. Or why say it? Unprofessional, I’d say.
Still, never mind all this. We get bored with many things. Thank you for your suggestions but if I am to listen to Japan-related music, I’d rather listen to its traditional music. It’s interesting that you mention Takemitsu. He was very much admired in Japan because he could compose music that sounded just like western composers’ works.
Thank you for your time and good luck with your challenge.Comment
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Some further (possibly final) thoughts after a listen (I wasn't going to, but this conversation was getting interesting!). I didn't hear any Japanese "influence" in this music, but a lot of it sounded to me like Britten, whose music I really don't appreciate at all, so that wasn't a good start. The operatic warbling of the first movement I found highly irritating; the material for children's choir in the second struck me as overextended and sentimental. The repetition of "Fukushima" at the end seems to me trite in the extreme. Nor did I hear any of Takemitsu's orchestrational finesse or his unpredictably shifting forms. Like you I would be more interested in hearing something that took Japanese traditional music as a point of departure, although of course that would take a certain involvement in and study of that tradition, which is maybe too much of an ask for such an unmistakeably English composer. Whenever I hear his music I wonder how it got a reputation for being in some way "edgy".Originally posted by doversoul1 View Post
I don't have any objection to pieces whose textual materials are drawn from seemingly unrelated sources; some of my favourite works (and some of my own) do this too. However, if the music doesn't on some level make connections between the disparate texts, then there can easily be a sense of something thrown together without any concern for deeper relationships between its elements. Overall I have the impression of something written principally to fulfil a commission, which isn't dispelled by its simplistically emotive features. Music written as a spontaneous response to catastrophic world events is one thing: music written to order, referencing such events that happen to have occurred in the country where the premiere takes place for (shall we say) less deeply felt reasons is another. I suspect there is more of the latter than the former in this work, although of course that can only ever be a suspicion.Comment
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A whistle-stop visit to Qobuz.... examples of the sounds or sonorities I felt permeated through parts of Hibiki may be found in the Japanese Rhapsody by Ifukube (on the Naxos) and the Folkloric Dance Suite by Wada on the BIS.... a general impression, not any kind of "quotes"... (try Suntory Dance after the Rhapsody....)
But as ever, it's presence is like any other kind of beauty: in the ear of the beholder....(I didn't pick up anything Britten-ish myself).
(And as you say, Richard, disparate materials can be the raw materials for great & very different works of art: vide Ives or Berio).
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OK!
I've certainly formed a far more favourable impression of the work after another complete listen and much excerpting...
But I AM enjoying it much more & rather regret my first-impression negativity. So - here's an idea about the dramatic or emotional trajectory of the work:
Working idea - Hibiki: three dances and four elegies: darkness-to-light in the orchestral movements, more "downward" darker trajectory (panic/seeking comfort/acceptance) in the vocals...
You could maybe hear the three orchestrals moving from (1) Restless, uneasy urban energy; to (2) Disaster and destruction, bleak stasis; to (5) An urgent energy for renewal.
Parallel to this, the vocal movements start in movement (3) with a kind of panic-reaction to the disaster in (2) "running through the sea of fire, I can't stop running!" ...; next the need for comfort and assurance - children singing twinkle twinkle. Then (after those positive rebuilding energies in Suntory Dance) the last two movements create a darker, elegiac memorial - individual ("Love Suicides") then collective "Fukushima".
Repeated hearings do change things. On first hearing I made little of Suntory Dance or Kira Kira; now I find them both moving and beautiful. The Childrens voices' return at the end with "Fukushima" seems utterly apt and poetic. Both of the last two movements are hauntingly spare and intense in their expressive means.
(As for the Mahler Song of the Earth allusion in On the Water's Surface (from Love Suicides)...perhaps a simple, touching reaching out from West - East. I don't know the text of the Chikamatsu Farewell, only the bare bones of the plot, but in the Mahler Farewell you have: "I seek rest for my lonely heart... my heart is still and awaits its hour". Seeking peace in Death - as Turnage seeks to commemorate Fukushima.
That explicit singing of "Fukushima" put me in mind of John Adams' 9/11 memorial piece, On the Transmigration of Souls, where the names of victims are read out within it. I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with this kind of explicitness.
As ever, just a few suggestions for further listening and thinking, which may change after another listen-through.... the constant problem with new music (especially live premières) is, one tends to read up on background, sources, quotes etc, but then having ticked them off as one listens, if the work doesn't appeal much, dismiss it after a single hearing. Repeated hearing tends to make that scaffolding fall away and give you a clearer view of the work's emotional & structural unity, as indeed its artistic worth. At least that's often been my experience, and strikingly so with Hibiki.Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 18-08-17, 21:53.Comment
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But why would a British composer want to emulate the sound of Westernised performance of Japanese melodies for a commission from Japan? I can’t say I heard anything Japanese in this work but you could say that it ‘had an echo’ of works composed by younger Japanese composers who meant their work to be culturally non-specific. I can’t remember their names off-hand but I have heard some er….astonishing works. Maybe they have learned a lot from Mark-Anthony Turnage, the 'sharpest and brightest living British composer'.Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View PostComment
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From your description, Jayne, it seems I must have missed out the first two movements... not sure I'll be getting around to them though, off on holiday tomorrow...Comment
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