Support us financially by purchasing from

100 Years of Japanese Song: A Japanese Journey 3
Charlotte de Rothschild (soprano), Adrian Farmer (piano)
rec. 2022, Wyastone Leys, Monmouth, UK
NIMBUS ALLIANCE NI6430 [73]

This Nimbus project - 100 Years of Japanese Song - is intrinsically esoteric; at least, it is for most Westerners. This, however, has not stopped it reaching as far as three volumes - all of that with an English language singer at the helm. Sovereign presentation is assured in all but one respect. If you were wondering, the deficiency in the case of this volume lies in the lack of composer profiles for these very unfamiliar reputations. There is a Nimbus disc of orchestral-accompanied songs as well and Volume 1 in this soprano/piano line has been reviewed here (review).

The Nimbus booklet and associated documentation are in both English and in Kanji. Collector fanatics with deep pockets will be familiar with the look and feel of Kanji if they have imported Western music CDs produced in Japan. The booklet provides all the sung words, and although there are no background notes, the sung lyrics are set forth in both English characters and Kanji. The Japanese composers are named and their dates given. Most of the composers’ names are unknown to me, the exceptions being Toru Takemitsu and Ikuma Dan. In more than a few cases, the composers are accorded more than a single song.

Charlotte de Rothschild is a dedicated, gifted and stylish soprano. Her purity of voice is rare and like that of Netania Davrath unalloyed by the excesses of operatic blowsiness. The results in this intense yet fragile repertoire are believable. She explains that this disc, like the earlier piano-accompanied pair from Nimbus “is a mixture of “kakyoku”, the Japanese equivalent of Lieder or Chansons, and of “douyou”, popular songs that are sung in schools and then throughout life.” This unusually open-minded approach recalls that adopted for Ute Lemper (Weill) and Matthias Goerne (Eisler) when it comes to mixing beguiling art and cabaret songs of Germany and the USA.

One way or another, the Nimbus series complements the numerous Japanese orchestral revivals on Naxos, a line that petered out a decade ago. As an aside, and apropos of nothing other than curiosity, we should note that in 1940 the Japanese government, in the year before Pearl Harbor, celebrated the 2600th anniversary of the Mikado dynasty. There was a series of music commissions, presumably demonstrating Japan’s outward-looking stance. Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem was one such but was dropped like a red-hot brick when the organisers saw the Christian movement titles. Others included Pizzetti’s Symphony in A in celebrazione del XXVIo centenario della fondazione dell'Impero giapponese, Ibert’s Ouverture de Fêtes, Sandor Veress’s Symphony No 1 "Hungarian Greetings on the 2600th Anniversary of the Japanese Dynasty", and Richard Strauss's Festmusik zur Feier des 2600 jährigen Bestehens des Kaiserreiches Japan (DG and Preiser). Countrymen of the ambitious Imperial archipelago also contributed. There was the Symphony No. 1 in D by Qunihico Hashimoto (1904-49) and the Symphony no. 3 by Hisato Ohzawa (1907-53). The festival fell during the lifetimes of many of the composers in this song recital.

I digress. Adrian Farmer is an equal partner with de Rothschild who is pari passu in creativity and equable when it comes to striking and sustaining mood and atmosphere. Singer and pianist have also recorded for Nimbus the songs of Cyril Scott, Norman Peterkin, Armstrong Gibbs, Roger Quilter and Miriam Hyde. These are figures of, or in, the English lyric school and at times not that far distant from these Japanese songs.

Teiichi Okano is represented by Maple Trees and Night of the Clouded Moon. Each has a lulling quality. Maple Trees speaks in the manner of a child’s hymn - perhaps All things bright and beautiful.

Kosaku Yamada’s Swallows and the nostalgic sweetness of Lament are Schubertian with piano parts that trickle and chuckle. Rokkyu stills the pulse yet rises to a fine yet ultimately placid climax. The title A Love Song About Sleet led me to expect something brusquer but it is calmer than that; more of a largo and having a kinship with Rokkyu. The same composer’s Crab Tomalley is, by contrast, darker¸ operatic and combustible. It is the darkest song here.

Shimpei Nakayama’s Habu Harbour is a song of great, chilly shadows. There is regret and sorrow here. By contrast his Song of the Shojoji Temple's 'Tanuki' makes for a witty jog-trot.

Yoshinao Nakada is represented by four songs. Found a Little Autumn ambles along with a measure of chiming repetition. Futile regret at passing time is woven into the fabric. His Goodnight! is a beautiful song borne by a bubbling stream of notes. This prompts thoughts of Schubert’s Trout but in a stream in the northern isles of Japan. Speaking of Schubert again, we come to the wonderful The Unknown Door with its semblance of trickling streams on which blossoms float slowly down a perfumed watercourse. Finally, with The Daffodil we are again struck by the purity of de Rothschild’s voice.

Ikuma Dan is allocated four songs. His sorrowing and regretful manner emerges eloquently from Melody for Voice and Wisteria; the latter coupled with a twisting harmonic pathway. Heroic rhetoric is on show in Hydrangea with its lengthy piano prelude. Town of Flowers is even subtler. In it, a Debussian swirl, slowly rotating, meets a Massenet-style serenade.

The other composers are rationed to single songs each. Kazuo Yamada’s Soon Spring will Come harbours drama in the shivering and wintry piano line. By the Old Castle of Komoro is by Ryutaro Hirota and but for the Japanese language could have been by Butterworth or Gurney. Roh Ogura’s Hometown is a nostalgic Schubertian sing-song. Toru Takemitsu in the Rho Unseen Child quickly establishes a fragile harmonic world for his Schoeck-like melancholy. Clouds by Tomiko Funabashi resorts to a Mahlerian sorrow. The next song might almost be by Poulenc and conveys to this listener the motion of a ‘slinky’ progressing downwards, step by lovely step. It is Sotaro Hiraoka’s Now it's spring! Finally, there’s Man Arai’s I am a Thousand Winds which is reminiscent in sound and feeling of a Highlanders song - perhaps a Burns classic.

The present disc concerns itself only with songs that are unfailingly melodious. There is no harbour here for the Second Viennese or Manchester schools. The listener’s only challenge may be that the fare could have been varied across a wider compass. It does not, however, make for arduous listening and is easy to enjoy and be charmed by. It is cleanly and resiliently recorded, as you would expect.

Rob Barnett
 
Contents
Teiichi Okano (1878-1941) Maple Trees [1:41]
Kosaku Yamada (1886-1965) Swallows [2:12]
Shimpei Nakayama (1887-1965) Habu Harbour [3:24]
Kosaku Yamada Rokkyu [2:43]
Nakayama Song of the Shojoji Temple's 'Tanuki' [2:44]
Yamada A Love Song About Sleet [4:18]
Okano Night of the Clouded Moon [2:12]
Ryutaro Hirota (1892-1952) By the Old Castle of Komoro [5:22]
Yamada Crab Tomalley [1:42]
Roh Ogura (1916-1990) Hometown [2:18]
Kosaku Lament [3:31]
Kazuo Yamada (1912-1991) Soon Spring will Come [2:22]
Yoshinao Nakada (1923-2000) Found a Little Autumn [3:04]
Ikuma Dan (1924-2001) Melody for Voice [2:40]
Nakada Goodnight! [2:26]
Dan Wisteria [4:01]
Nakada The Unknown Door [2:08]
Dan Hydrangea [3:04]
Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) The Unseen Child [4:39]
Nakada The Daffodil [2:37]
Dan Town of Flowers [2:58]
Tomiko Funabashi (b.1971) Clouds [3:01]
Sotaro Hiraoka (b.1943) Now it's spring! [3:39]
Man Arai (1946-2021) I am a Thousand Winds [4:06]