The main purpose of this disc appears to be to place Takemitsu in his Japanese context. Two of the other three composers (Matsumura and Miyoshi) were born around the same time, and the third, though more than 20 years younger, has stylistic elements in common, not least a preference for understatement and subtle contrasts of colour of the kind that the other two composers, more expressionist than impressionist, seem determined to avoid.
The Takemitsu work, an elegy for Morton Feldman dating from 1988, is characteristically restrained and no less characteristically well made, moving gently forwards and never drifting or rambling. Yoshimatsu’s Threnody (1980) is the best of the remaining works, with a delicate, idiosyncratic kind of homogeneity that Takemitsu himself might well have admired. True, there are moments where the music seems to lose direction, but overall there is a feeling of control and conviction that the other works lack.
Miyoshi’s Noesis (1978) is big and brash, with little sense of co-ordination but a certain rudimentary flair in the way its strongly contrasted noises (was the composer aware of the obvious anagram?) are set out. Effective contrast is just one factor conspicuous by its absence in Matsumura’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (also 1978), a trial of even the most tolerant listener’s patience. That a musician of Tadaaki Otaka’s distinction should want to be associated with this is difficult to credit. All the performances seem well prepared but the sound lacks detail and atmosphere. At least with Takemitsu and Yoshimatsu the music is strongly atmospheric in its own right.AW