Tuesday Tones

Yasuji Koyose (1900-1981) was, among other things, a teacher of Toru Takemitsu, who could well be Japan’s greatest classical composer to date. His music incorporates Japanese tonalities and elements of Japanese folk song. This piece is not orchestral at all: here we take one of our infrequent detours into the world of the solo piano. Fairy Tale of the North is a moody work, solemn and meditative, that was apparently inspired by the composer’s impressions of the darkness of Japan’s north country, that he experienced in Morioka, a city in the north of Honshu. The piece has a familiar sound at first, but as it progresses it seems to get, well, stranger and stranger.

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