2. 布袋 "Hotei" composed by Yamada Kengyo
3. 調子&秋風曲 "Choshi" & "Akikaze no Kyoku" Fudaiji Honkyoku & composed by Mitsuzaki Kengyo
Performers: 善養寺惠介 & 山登松和 Keisuke Zenyoji and Showa Yamato (shakuhachi, koto & voice)
Sekiheki no Fu is a Sokyoku piece maybe in the Meiji Shinkyoku style from the Yamada Ryu (school). This piece was composed for shakuhachi by Nakanoshima Kin'ichi in 1934 and for koto by Nakanoshima Kin'ichi. Nakanoshima, a contemporary virtuoso of the koto and shamisen and a talented composer of traditional Japanese music, created this work at the request of NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) in 1934. The text is a free translation into Japanese of an ode by Su Tung-p'o, a Chinese poet of the Sung dynasty (tenth century), translated by Tsuge Gen'ichi. The ode expresses the poet's deep emotions on visiting the ancient battlefield of Ch'ih-pi or Sekiheki ('Red Cliff') on the Yangtze River in Hupei province (information and poem available from komuso.com). Commencing reflectively, it quickly builds in impetus to a rhythmic section, variously heterophonic and homophonic in texture, moving to a slower section focusing on the lyrical qualities of the dialogue between shakuhachi and koto player's voice, the latter unfolding the poem with extended episodes for voice and koto alone. The shakuhachi rejoins towards the end of the middle section, transitioning into a solo recitative featuring sensitive timbral and pitch bends in a slow, mellow voice. This is a very beautiful and tasteful lyrical moment that segues into the typically rapid, rhythmical and accelerating final (coda) section. There is clearly very tight ensemble playing here.
Hotei is one of the Shichi Fukujin, the seven Japanese Shinto-gods of luck. Hotei ('cloth bag') is the god of happiness and laughter and the wisdom. Yatsuhashi Kengyo during the seventeenth century, (1614 – 1685), a blind musician from Kyoto learned koto in defiance of the rule that it could not be taught to blind people or women, and transformed the koto’s repertoire making it available to wider audiences. Ikuta Kengyo (1666-1716) (prominent koto players often took the name Kengyo) merged koto music with jijuta, a vocal tradition of the more popular and livelier shamisen (a lute-style instrument) in the Kyoto and Osaka area (information). The Ikuta school (Ikuta ryu) stresses koto and shamisen ensemble music. In Tokyo, Yamada Kengyo (1757 – 1817) adapted pieces composed for Edo-style shamisen to the koto, and established the Yamada school, i.e. before the time of well-known Michio Miyagi and Sawai Kazue.
The third and longest piece on the CD is in fact the conflation of Choshi honkyoku for solo shakuhachi followed by Akikaze no Kyoku (Melody of the Autumn Wind). Choshi is often used as a settling or tuning piece before jijuta. The formal unit underlying these pieces is the dan (step, section). According to the number of dan the pieces are called "Rokudan no shirabe", or "Hachidan no shirabe", that is, pieces in six sections, pieces in eight sections, etc. Each dan is made up of 104 hyoshi, one hyoshi being the basic metrical unit. An extra four hyoshi, which constitute the initial motive of the first dan, are not counted in the 104. The tempo of a danmono is fixed. After a subdued beginning it is increased and reaches a climax which usually occurs towards the end of the last section, and then the piece is concluded quietly. Composed by Mitsuzaki Kengyo in the early 19th Century, he was eventually banned from the guild of blind musicians for composing a kumiuta (song-suite) to prevent further compositions in the form of Akikaze no Kyoku (Autumn Wind) (from examples of pre-war koto recordings).
