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Showing posts with label satoshi tanaka works for piano satoko inoue gapplegate classical-modern review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label satoshi tanaka works for piano satoko inoue gapplegate classical-modern review. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Satoshi Tanaka, Works for Piano, Satoko Inoue

Satoshi Tanaka, Japanese Composer born in the '50s and still very much with us, is not a name I have come across before. Tanaka's Works for Piano solo (EMEC Discos E-112) provides us with a good hour of music, as performed by Satoko Inoue.

Sometimes you get the music, a cover and little else if you receive music in download form. A web search turned up nil. So I have nothing to go on here except my ears.

The music, seven works in all, is quiet in the manner of Morton Feldman. The tonality is loosely chromatic, tied to a key but tenuously. Unlike Feldman's later work there is no obvious pattern of repetition, which of course is fine. Instead we have a linear progression of unfolding, sparse melody, which strikes me as somewhat mystical, perhaps a bit Zen-like in its revelling in the sensuous sound moments in succession.

Pianist Satoko Inoue gives us a sensitive reading. The music haunts our sensibilities and then is gone. We are left with a feeling of peace, but not with a new ager's attempt to force that peace upon us. This music has authentic sensibilities. If you love Feldman this will be in your wheelhouse. It revels in understatement. I would love to hear more of Satoshi Tanaka! Recommended.