TAKASHI YOSHIMATSU

Chandos is pleased to present the premiere recording of ‘Ode to Birds and Rainbow’ from exclusive composer-in-residence Takashi Yoshimatsu

This new recording of the Kamui-Chikap Symphony is the only one currently available.

The conductor Sachio Fujioka, who has had great success with Yoshimatsu’s music in Japan and on record with Chandos, works closely with the composer who is present on all of Chandos’ recordings of his music.

This is the fourth disc of Yoshimatsu’s music from Chandos.


Yoshimatsu’s sister died in the winter of 1994. Her last words were: ‘The next time I am born I would like to be a bird’. As she lay dying she had been enjoying listening to a CD of birdsong. The ‘Ode to Birds and Rainbow’ is made up of four parts: Introduction, Tapestry I, Canticle and Tapestry II. The introduction is short and played by strings alone and the thread of Tapestry I is a single melody. The core of the Canticle is a piano that quietly echoes a sacred song. Tapestry II is the ‘Ode to Birds and Rainbow’ itself. The work is dedicated to his sister; it is not a requiem but an ode to a soul at play amidst the birds and rainbow in the sky. It was first performed in September 1994.

Kamui Chikap is Ainu for ‘God Bird’. This god is the guardian and supreme god of the forest, who gazes upon the lives and deaths of human beings from the highest branches of the trees. Yoshimatsu says: ‘It may have been a desire to look down from on high that led me to put to paper the jumble of squalid noises I had accumulated in my head…’. Work on this symphony began in the spring of 1998 and was completed two years later. Throughout the symphony there is a variety of fragments from works that were written and destroyed before the composer was twenty, and there are echoes of Sibelius and Stravinsky. It was first performed in May 1990.

‘Good performances, good sound. If you want to sample Yoshimatsu’s music, this is a good place to start’.
‘…his [Yoshimatsu’s] music is undeniably lovely and accessible.’
Attractive, semi-ambient sounds and New Age dreaminess are the basis of these two immaculately executed, picturesque and listener-friendly works.
‘Sound and performance quality are uniformly excellent; a very enjoyable disc.’
‘Impressive works, performances and recording.’

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