RFI: Toshiro Mayuzumi

I bought a copy of Nirvana Symphony blind on an ILXor's recommendation a while back; recently dug it out for another listen and was blown away by it all over again. Any recommendations for where to go next? I bought a compilation called "Two Modern Japanese Composers", but I freely confess that contemporary Japanese classical music is a bit of a blind spot.

original 1962 LP's cover art by yoko ono!

http://www.discogs.com/Toshiro-Mayuzumi-Nirvana-Symphonie/master/167311

Many of the early Japanese NHK studio pieces were his; sine wave & white noise generators tuned to eastern scales, basic simple synthesis, very pure and idiomatic. If you like Ryoji Ikeda, it starts with pieces like the ones on this compilation: http://www.discogs.com/Hiroshi-Siotani-%E9%9F%B3%E3%81%AE%E5%A7%8B%E6%BA%90%E3%82%92%E6%B1%82%E3%82%81%E3%81%A6-Oto-No-Hajimari-Wo-Motomete/master/178112

Nirvana Symphony is pretty remarkable. Instead of blending eastern instruments to the western orchestra like Takemitsu, his approach was to do a careful spectrum analysis of Buddist ceremonial rites, namely the bells and the chants, assign each exact overtone pitch to a single western instrument, and let it drone. I have the later recording split with the Mandala Symphony, have always wanted to hear the original one.

John Huston heard Nirvana, and chose him to score his film 'The Bible'. I've never seen that one, but Huston tapped him again for 'Reflections In A Golden Eye', which is pretty must-see

if you like 'Nirvana Symphonie', your absolute next stop is definitely Akira Nishimura's 'Into The Lights of the Eternal Chaos'. Used copies turn up very infrequently but that is a mindburning piece of orchestral music.

On a related note, if anyone here has copies of the very early Somei Satoh NHK electronic pieces 'Emerald Tablet', 'Echoes' or 'Mandala', please drop me a line. They come up a lot in conversation when I talk about the early Mayuzumi. Obscure Tape Music of Japan reissued some of it and I'm pretty mad I didn't even see a single review anywhere warning me it was out; that's a pretty major release for active reviewing websites to space on, totally out of print now

I have his score for The Bible, it's great to hear a straight-up modernist approach to subject matter that was almost always treated atavistically. There's a 2cd version that came out not long ago from one of the Italian ost labels.

Tried to buy Nirvana Symphony as a download last week but a test listen on spotify revealed too many digital artefacts for comfort. Gonna try to find a vinyl rip I guess.

There's another film score by him to some weird 60s mondo thing about race car drivers that was released on cd last year

re: Into The Lights Of Eternal Chaos, there happened to be a second-hand CD on eBay a few weeks ago when I saw your response. listening to it now for the first time and I must say you are 100% correct about it; holy shit. harrowing is the first word that comes to mind.

Glad you could track it down! I came across it in the KFJC new releases library in the mid-90s, found a copy much later. I keep waiting for that piece to get its due.