Qunihico Hashimoto, Ryusuke Numajiri and more - Symphony No. 1 in D major/Symphonic Suite

The longest piece here, the Symphony, runs 46:25. It was composed to commemorate the 2600th anniversary of the founding of the Japanese Empire; the powers that be got that wrong--it was really about the 1600th anniversary--but that's another story. Hashimoto, who was composing fairly forward-looking work at the time, geared back at the government's demand and wrote a symphony that was not only tonal, but even, to borrow a term used at about the same time in the Soviet Union, 'proletarian': easily understood by the masses. Consequently, the materials in the symphony borrow heavily from folk songs and dances and its construction is of the simplest and most easily understood sort. Indeed, there is one motto, D up to E down to A, that is repeated innumerable times throughout the piece, usually with a harmonic underpinning of I-V-I; this gets pretty boring after a while. However, there are stunning orchestration and some charming pastoral and martial effects in the first and second movements. The third and last movement is a set of variations based on a theme that includes D-E-A again. The variations themselves are rather pedestrian but they do lead to a fairly interesting fugue as culmination of the movement and of the symphony as a whole.

Seen in historical perspective this symphony is surely an important landmark in Western composition in Japan. But standing on its own, it is hardly to be classed even with second-rate late 19th century products of Europe itself. And nothing in the piece would have been foreign to a listener from that era.

The more engaging filler on this disc is a 20-minute suite from a ballet, 'Heavenly Maiden and the Fisherman,' written before Hashimoto left Japan for his studies in Europe. Written in an attractive mostly impressionistic style, one assumes Hashimoto was freer to express himself in this music, absent the straitjacket of governmental strictures. The music depicts the story of a fisherman who finds a magic robe that allows its wearer to fly and which belongs to the Heavenly Maiden. She implores him to give it back, and moved by her plea, he returns it and she ascends back into heaven.

Aside from the use of pentatonic motifs and some Japanese sounding drumming this music sounds for all the world like that coming from France perhaps a decade or two earlier; one thinks of Dukas's 'La Peri' or Koechlin's 'Sur les flots lointains.' Interesting, attractive stuff.

The splendid Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra is well-led by conductor Ryusuke Numajiri, a name new to me. I understand that James DePreist, the long-time conductor of the Oregon Symphony who has recorded some wonderful things over the years (Tsontakis and Lees, among others) has just taken up his post as their new Permanent Conductor.

Now, I'd like to hear some of Hashimoto's more advanced music. How about it Naxos?

TT=67:03

Scott Morrison