The Warped Ones (1960)
Part One: Enter Toshiru Mayuzumi
Get ready for this one, folks. The Warped Ones, the second film in the Eclipse Series The Warped World of Koreyoshi Kurahara, is where things start to get a little more interesting. This Japanese New Wave film features a score by Toshiru Mayuzumi that will take your breath away with its free jazz score. The film itself is a wild ride from start to finish and the music reflects that fact.
One of the things I would like to accomplish through this blog would be to introduce you to some new music you might not be aware of in a variety of styles of music. I would like to show how looking closely at movie scores and soundtracks can be a gateway into new worlds of music. This has certainly been the case for me. Hearing the music of Frank Zappa and seeing films like 200 Motels, which satirized a lot of 20th Century classical music, was certainly a gateway for me which lead to my interest in all kinds of music and ultimately lead me to compose my own symphonic, “classical” and art music. I hope this blog might do its own part in expanding your musical horizons. Looking into Mayuzumi certainly expanded mine.
In this installment of Criterion Improvisations, I would like to take a look at Mayuzumi who would also score the next three films in this Eclipse set. Even though Masaru Sato did a great job scoring Intimidation (1960) for Kurahara (see my last column), I believe Mayuzumi and Kurahara are a match made in heaven, as the director starts to get more and more bizarre throughout the 60’s.
Mayuzumi was an adventurous composer and unlike Sato (who only wrote film scores)wrote a lot of music for the concert stage. With the piece X,Y ,Z (1955), he was the first Japanese composer to work with musique concrète. That same year also he became the first Japanese composer to write an electronic music piece, Shūsaku I. Around this same period he also wrote 12-tone pieces, aleatory pieces and compositions for prepared piano as well as an orchestral piece called Elektoplasm that featured electric guitar. (I’d like to see, hear and possibly play that score someday – I am a concert guitarist myself. Check out www.donpride.com to find out more.)
Near the end of the 50’s, his music started to reflect his interest Buddhist chants. He wrote the “Nirvana Symphony” in 1958. The symphony is very colorfully orchestrated and is should be very accessible to most listeners. The symphony is in six movements:
1. Campanology I – orchestra
2. Suramaganah – Buddhist chant
3. Campanology II – orchestra
4. Mahaprajnaparamita – Buddhist chant
5. Campanology III – orchestra
6. Finale – chant and orchestra combined
It is quite a musical journey for the adventurous listener and I recommend it highly. The whole piece is around 35 minutes long and combines Eastern and Western music in a way that is highly original and not “cheesy” or “new agey” in any way. If you like Bright Sheng then I bet you would like this music. Of course, if you haven’t heard Bright Sheng yet, then you should definitely check out his music as well to see what exciting things are going on in contemporary classical composition today. You can download the “Nirvana Symphony” on itunes or amazon in a performance by the Tokyo Metropolitan symphony that is quite nice.
I think I’m going to end this “improvisation” right there. I have ordered Mayuzumi’s Mandala Symphony from anmazon and it should be here on Wednesday. This piece was written in 1960, the same year The Warped Ones was released, and will make an excellent companion as we continue to follow Mayazumi’s career in both film and on the concert stage together next time. In the meantime, please check out the “Nirvana Symphony” and let me know what you think.
Next time: Mayazumi’s Mandala Symphony and The Warped Ones
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