Top 100 Composers: Toshi Ichiyanagi
Toshi Ichiyanagi? I 1st heard his music on the "Music Before Revolution" box-set in 1974, then in 1975 as part of "Extended Voices". Both were extremely important to me. The 2 pieces on the box-set, "Sapporo" & "Life Music" were almost completely unlike anything I'd ever heard before. They sounded like some sort of primordial playpen where almost every sound seemed on the fringe of technique. - like the sounds were just coming into being They were unpredictable & very, very alive.
Ichiyanagi studied with both Henry Cowell & John Cage, presumably at the New School for Social Research in NYC. It shows, of course, in his concentration on extended piano playing in "Music for Piano No. 4", played by David Tudor in the 1st 2 incarnations below.
Titles such as "Music for Living Process" strike me as extremely apropos. For me, the early work is so organic, it's as if one is hearing it grow. The later work isn't so playful, it's more through-composed, there seems less room for the player to exert their personal imagination. Nonetheless, I like that work too. "Cross Water Roads", "Inner-Landscape", & "Time Perspective" don't have that early limitation-usurpation but they're still strong works. I like them in contrast to the early work, it would've been boring if Ichiyanagi became a one-trick pony & only repeated variations on "Life Music" - but if there weren't the early work to contrast them to I wouldn't enjoy them as much. I want to see some SCORES.
Once again, I made a (revised) retrospective compilation to help me immerse myself in the work chronologically.
- January 8, 2018 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
Volume 1 of 3: 1960-1962:
Side 1 of a 90 minute tape:
01. "Music for Piano No. 4" - 1960 - 20:37
02. "Music for Piano No. 4 Electronic Version" - 1960 - 15:23
Side 2 of a 90 minute tape:
03. "Music for Electric Metronomes" - 1960 - 15:40
04. "For Strings" (1961) + "Music for Piano No. 4" (1960) + "Music for Piano No. 6" (1961) - 7:53
05. "Duet" - 1961 - 12:33
06. "Parallel Music" - 1962 - 9:12
Volume 2 of 3: 1962-1967:
Side 1 of a 90 minute tape:
07. "Activities for Orchestra" - 1962 - 24:09
08. "Sapporo" - 1962 - 13:04
Side 2 of a 90 minute tape:
09. "Life Music" - 1964 - 13:23 - Ensemble Musica Negativa
10. "Life Music" - 1966 - 16:45 - Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra
11. "Extended Voices" - 1967 - 11:05
Volume 3 of 3: 1972-1997:
Side 1 of a 90 minute tape:
12. "Piano Media" - 1972 - 6:13
13. "Music for Living Process" - 1973 - 14:30 - Tokk-Ensemble Tokyo
14. "Piano Concerto No. 3 "Cross Water Roads"" - 1991 - 17:22
Side 2 of a 90 minute tape:
15. "String Quartet No. 3 "Inner-Landscape"" - 1994 - 13:49
16. "Symphony No. 5 "Time Perspective" (on the theme of opera "Momo")" - 1997 - 17:48
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