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stereo recording, enjoy it !
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 TOSHIRO MAYUZUMI PHILIPS 30LD-1016 (1987) Memorial TOSHIRO MAYUZUMI (1929-1997.4.10)
The'Nirvana' Symphony first performed in 1958 in Tokyo. and the 'Mandala' Symphony completed and first performed two years later. are the earliest of a number of works by Toshiro Mayuzumi in which he presents a world view of Buddhism. But there' is much more to the works than their religious and philosophical background. In both Mayuzumi attempts to create. in the manner of Varèse. musical structures from the energy inherent in sound itself'. Writing of the 'Nirvana" Symphony he has said: "I have brought various new timbres into my compositions... for example. mixed tones. which are combinations of several or even several dozen pure tones." It is this aspect of his acoustic investigation which provides the link with religion."In the course of my work I became deeply interested in the sound produced by the Japanese temple bell. which I consider a typical mixture of tones.' Of particular interest was the complex overtone structure and the way the component parts changed subtly with the passage of time. This he has tried to translate into instrumental terms. Furthermore the temple bell has always been regarded in Japan as symbolic of the transience of all things. and thus Nirvana. the ideal state of things. Mayuzumi was similarly fascinated by the intonation and rhythm of Sutra recitations by Buddhist priests. Here again he recognised a musical "noise" produced by the mixing of voices of varying pitches. This finds a counterpart in the symphony in a 12-part male chorus which sings rather than recites the Zen Sutra "Suramgamah." In the finale a Tendai text the Shômyô is used. Two other technical aspects of the work should be mentioned. First the use of tone-colour-melody in the style of Schoenberg. with the music progressing in a continuous series of tone clusters. The second is the spatial element. The work is designed to be played in concert by a full orchestra with the addition of two separate groups. one of treble woodwind and the other of bass brass. These are placed in the corners of the hall opposite the orchestra so that the audience is caught within a triangle of sound. In India the word "mandala" meant originally the secret circle drawn in Tantric rites for protection against evil spirits. In Japan it came to signify the symbolically circular paintings which graphically crystallised Buddha's teaching and the Absolute Universe. Although he sets out with the same aim of depicting the basic philosophy of Buddhism in a work of art. Mayuzumi avoids the painters' traditional formalisation of concrete images. "I planned to achieve my aim only through the complex structures of pure tones without using any materials like the Buddhist scriptures. because the object is abstract. a philosophy." he says. The two parts of the work bear the titles of two types of mandala painting. In the Mandala Vajra-dhatu (The Diamond World) the immobile and eternal aspects of Buddhist enlightenment are portrayed. In the Mandala Garbha-dhatu (The Matrix World) the unenlightened wend through the labyrinth of the Buddhist hell encountering starvation and massacre until they reach the revelation that each mind is a living Buddha. The orchestra this time is all on stage but with the strings divided in two groups flanking the other instruments right and left. |
