Yamada, Kōsaku : *in preparation*
Work Overview
Genre:Various works
Total Playing Time:4 min 30 sec
Copyright:Public Domain
Commentary (1)
Author : Ota Kaori
Last Updated: March 28, 2018
[Open]
Author : Ota Kaori
A dance poem composed on March 8, 1916. It is the sixth piece in Oto no Nagare (Flow of Sound). It was premiered on November 11 of the same year as its composition, at the "Concert for the Presentation of Piano Pieces by Mr. Kosaku Yamada (sic)," with the composer himself performing on the piano. At the time of its premiere, it was dedicated to Baron Koyata Iwasaki, who had supported Yamada's studies in Germany. It was later orchestrated in 1926.
The dance poem is a genre newly pioneered by Yamada, integrating dance and music, with compositions concentrated in the 1910s after his studies in Germany. Aoi Honoo (Blue Flame) was composed for dance and music, based on a symbolic poem depicting the anguish of human life. Yamada stated that Aoi Honoo is concretized and simultaneously symbolized by the movements of a pair of men and women on stage, flanking a blue flame. It is said that in this work, worldly anguish, the passions of men and women, and the purification of death and the soul are particularly vividly depicted (Nobuko Goto, Kosaku Yamada: Not Creating but Giving Birth, 2015).
Yamada stayed in the United States from 1918 to 1919, and Aoi Honoo was performed during that stay on April 7, 1918, at the Greenwich Village Theatre in New York, with Michio Ito and the composer on piano. On November 19, 1922, it had its stage premiere in Japan at a performance commemorating Baku Ishii's trip to Europe. Ishii was originally a member of the Imperial Theatre's Western Drama Department, but after meeting Yamada, he acquired eurhythmics according to Jacques-Dalcroze's textbooks and entered the world of dance.
Movements (10)
The Blue Flame ; Aoi Honō [青い焔]. Grave
Total Performance Time: 5 min 00 sec
The Chimes of the Dawn ; Reimei no Kankin [黎明の看経]. Lento
Total Performance Time: 4 min 30 sec