Toshiro Mayuzumi
Encyclopedia
Toshiro Mayuzumi was a Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese composer.

Biography

Mayuzumi was a student of Tomojiro Ikenouchi
Tomojiro Ikenouchi
was a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music and professor born in Tokyo, Japan. The son of a haiku poet, Ikenouchi traveled to Paris in 1927, where he studied composition with Henri Büsser and piano with Lazare Levy. His music is influenced by French Impressionist music...

 at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music
Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music
or is one of the oldest and most prestigious art schools in Japan. Located in Ueno Park, it also has facilities in Toride, Ibaraki, Yokohama, Kanagawa, and Kitasenju, Adachi, Tokyo...

 immediately following the Second World War, before going to Europe where he attended the Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 Conservatoire national supérieur de musique
Conservatoire de Paris
The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...

.

He was initially enthusiastic about avant-garde Western music, especially that of Varèse
Edgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....

, but beginning in 1957 he turned to pan-Asianism for new sonorous material (Herd 1989, 133). Like the novelist Mishima Yukio, whose novel The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion is a novel by the Japanese author Yukio Mishima. It was published in 1956 and translated into English by Ivan Morris in 1959.-Plot introduction:...

he set as an opera (Kinkakuji, 1976), Mayuzumi opposed the westernization of Japan and tried to emphasize his native cultural identity in his work.

A prolific composer for the cinema, he composed more than a hundred film scores between Waga ya wa tanoshi (It's Great to Be Young) in 1951 and Jo no mai in 1984. The best-known film with a score by Mayuzumi is probably The Bible: In the Beginning (1966). He also wrote many pieces for wind band that have been recorded by the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra
Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra
The is a professional concert band that has long been regarded as one of the world's finest, perhaps rivaled only in recent years by the Dallas Wind Symphony ....

.

Mayuzumi was the recipient of a Suntory Music Award
Suntory Music Award
The , previously known as the , designed to promote Western music in Japan, has been given by the Suntory Music Foundation since their establishment in 1969. The award is presented annually to individuals or groups for the greatest achievement in the development of Western or contemporary music in...

 in 1996.

Operas

  • Kinkakuji (The Golden Pavilion) (1976)
  • Kojiki (Days of the Gods) (1996)

Ballet

  • Bugaku
    Bugaku (ballet)
    Bugaku is a ballet made by New York City Ballet co-founder and balletmaster George Balanchine to eponymous music by Toshiro Mayuzumi commissioned by City Ballet in 1962. The premiere took place on March 30, 1963, at City Center of Music and Drama, New York, with scenery by David Hays, costumes by...

    (1962)
  • Olympics (1965)
  • The Kabuki (1986)
  • M (1996)

Orchestral works

  • Rumba Rhapsody (1948)
  • Symphonic Mood (1950)
  • Bacchanale (1954)
  • Ektoplasm (1954)
  • Tonepleromas 55 (1955)
  • phonology Symphonique (1957)
  • Nirvana Symphony for male chorus and orchestra (1958)
  • Mandala Symphony (1960)
  • Echigojishi (1960)
  • Music with Sculpture (1961)
  • Textures for wind orchestra (1962)
  • Samsara (1962)
  • Essay in Sonorities (Mozartiana) (1963)
  • Essay for string orchestra (1963)
  • Fireworks (1963)
  • Ongaku no tanjō [Birth of Music] (1964)
  • Concerto for percussion and wind orchestra (1965)
  • Concertino for xylophone and orchestra (1965)
  • Shu [Incantation] (1967)
  • Tateyama (1974)
  • ARIA in G for Solo Violin and Orchestra (1978)
  • Capriccio for Solo Violin and String Orchestra (1988)
  • Mukyūdō [Perpetual Motion] (1989)

Ensemble/Instrumental works

  • Sonata, for violin and piano (1946)
  • Twelve Preludes, for piano (1946)
  • Hors d'œuvre, for piano (1947)
  • Divertimento, for 10 instruments (1948)
  • String Quartet (1952)
  • Sextet, for flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, horn, trumpet, and piano (1955)
  • Pieces, for prepared piano and string quartet (1957)
  • Mikrokosmos, for clavioline, guitar, musical saw, vibraphone, xylophone, percussion, and piano (1957)
  • Bunraku, for violoncello solo (1960)
  • Prelude, for string quartet (1961)
  • Metamusic, for saxophone, violin, and piano (1961)
  • Shōwa ten-pyō raku, for gagaku ensemble (1970)
  • Rokudan, for harp (1989)

Electronic music

  • X, Y, Z for musique concrète (1953)
  • Boxing for Radio Drama (1954)
  • Music for Sine Wave by Proportion of Prime Number (1955)
  • Music for Modulated Wave by Proportion of Prime Number (1955)
  • Invention for Square Wave and Saw-tooth Wave (1955)
  • Variations on Numerical Principle of 7 (1956; with Makoto Moroi
    Makoto Moroi
    is a Japanese composer.Makoto Moroi was born in Tokyo, and is the son of Saburō Moroi. He studied composition with Tomojirō Ikenouchi at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, graduating in 1952. He also studied Gregorian chant privately with Paul Anouilh, and Renaissance and Baroque...

    )
  • Aoi no ue (1957)
  • Campanology for multi-piano (1959)
  • Olympic Campanology (1964)
  • Mandala for solo voice and electronic sounds (1969)

Film scores

  • Waga ya wa tanoshi (1951)
  • The Woman in the Rumor
    The Woman in the Rumor
    is a 1954 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi.-Cast:* Kinuyo Tanaka as Hatsuko Mabuchi* Tomoemon Otani as Kenji Matoba* Yoshiko Kuga as Yukiko Mabuchi-External links:...

    (噂の女 Uwasa no onna) (1954)
  • Street of Shame
    Street of Shame
    is a 1956 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, his last film.The film is based on the novel Susaki no Onna by Yoshiko Shibaki.-Cast:* Machiko Kyō as Mickey* Ayako Wakao as Yumeko* Aiko Mimasu as Yasumi* Michiyo Kogure as Hanae...

    (1956)
  • Enjo
    Enjo
    is a 1958 Japanese film directed by Kon Ichikawa and adapted from the Yukio Mishima novel The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. It stands as one of his better known films...

    (1958)
  • Stolen Desire
    Stolen Desire
    is a 1958 Japanese film by director Shohei Imamura. This was the first film Imamura directed.- Plot :The film tells the story of a group of itinerant actors. Many of the interests to be found throughout Imamura's career are found already in this first film, including earthy depictions of sex, life...

    (1958)
  • When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
    When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
    is a 1960 Japanese drama film directed by Mikio Naruse.Keiko, a young widow, becomes a bar hostess in Ginza to make ends meet. The story recounts the struggles to maintain her independence in a male-dominated society...

    (1960)
  • The Warped Ones
    The Warped Ones
    is a 1960 Japanese Sun Tribe film directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara and starring Tamio Kawachi, Eiji Go, Yuko Chishiro and Noriko Matsumoto. It was produced and distributed by the Nikkatsu Company...

    (1960)
  • Black Sun (1964)
  • Tokyo Olympiad
    Tokyo Olympiad
    Tokyo Olympiad is a 1965 documentary film directed by Kon Ichikawa which documents the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Like Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia, which documented the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Ichikawa's film was considered a milestone in documentary filmmaking...

    (1965)
  • The Pornographers
    The Pornographers
    The Pornographers is a 1966 Japanese film directed by Shohei Imamura and based on a novel of the same name by Akiyuki Nosaka. Its original Japanese title is Erogotoshitachi yori Jinruigaku nyumon , which means 'An introduction to anthropology through the pornographers'. It tells the story of porn...

    (1966)
  • The Bible... in the Beginning
    The Bible: In The Beginning
    The Bible: In the Beginning is a 1966 Biblical epic film recounting the first 22 chapters of the Book of Genesis. It was a joint American/Italian production conceived by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Huston. The music score is by Toshirô Mayuzumi. The production was photographed by...

    (1966)
  • Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)
  • The Profound Desire of the Gods
    The Profound Desire of the Gods
    is a 1968 Japanese film by director Shōhei Imamura. The culmination of the director's examinations of the fringes of Japanese society throughout the 1960s, the film was an 18-month super-production which failed to make an impression at the time of its release, but has since risen in stature to...

     (神々の深き欲望 Kamigami no Fukaki Yokubo) (film)
    (1968)
  • Jo no mai (1984)

Sources

  • Heifetz, Robin J. 1984. "East-West Synthesis in Japanese Composition: 1950-1970". Journal of Musicology 3, no. 4 (Autumn): 443–55.
  • Herd, Judith Ann. 1989. "The Neonationalist Movement: Origins of Japanese Contemporary Music". Perspectives of New Music 27, no. 2 (Summer): 118–63.
  • Kanazawa, Masakata. 2001. "Mayuzumi, Toshirō". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
  • Loubet, Emmanuelle, Curtis Roads, and Brigitte Robindoré. 1997. "The Beginnings of Electronic Music in Japan, with a Focus on the NHK Studio: The 1950s and 1960s". Computer Music Journal 21, no. 4 (Winter): 11–22.

External links

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