Takashi Yoshimatsu ( 吉松隆 ): Fuzzy Bird Sonata (1991)

Classical Music Discord: Takashi Yoshimatsu ( b. 1953 ) Takashi Yoshimatsu was born in Tokyo in 1953, at a time when Japanese composers had embraced the trend towards avant-garde techniques. While absorbing these, Yoshimatsu opposed the general fashion, returning to popular rhythms and romantic melody and coming to be regarded as the standard-bearer of Neo-Romanticism in Japan. He studied under Teizo Matsumura, a pupil of Ifukube, for some time, but acquired much of his craft by himself. He is a great admirer of Sibelius and his works include five symphonies, and concertos of piano, for saxophone, and for bassoon. Fuzzy Bird Sonata ( 1991 ) The first composition in the repertoire is Fuzzy Bird Sonata (1991) by Takashi Yoshimatsu, in the movements: Run bird, Sing bird, Fly bird; pages of absolute descriptive charm in which each movement is characterized by a particular compositional style announced by the titles themselves. The external movements are energetic and active as we can infer from the words Run and Fly, and the formal structure for each of these movements is in the form of a rondo. The first movement has a metre that changes frequently, but the pulse is always present and rhythmic; the last movement, Fly Bird, can be defined as a sort of epitaph in this composition with an ornithological theme: the melodic materials of the first two movements are summarized here, clearly showing a cyclical nature through the memory of a bird that seems to remember its past, flying towards an unknown future. In fact, the introductory section has no metre and does not contain any tempo markings. We would dare to suggest an influence of the traditional Japanese music played by the yokobue and the daltaiko, characteristic instruments whose effects can be found especially in the rhythm, made percussive by the piano thanks to the writing of the low notes. Movements 0:00 I. Run, bird 5:52 II. Sing, bird 11:31 III. Fly, bird Instrumentation for Alto Saxophone and Piano Performer Duo Agorà, Domenico Luciano (Alto Saxophone), Eugenio Catone (Piano) The music published in my channel is exclusively dedicated to divulgation purposes and not commercial. This within a program shared to study classic educational music which involves thousands of people around the world. If someone, for any reason, would deem that a video appearing in this channel violates the copyright, please inform me immediately before you submit a claim to Youtube, and it will be my care to immediately remove the video accordingly. Your collaboration will be appreciated. #sheetmusic #classicalmusic