Pictures At An Exhibition, The Firebird /Yamashita

뮤지션 Modest Mussorgsky, Igor Stravinsky

연주자 Kazuhito Yamashita

악 기 Guitar

제작사 BMG

레이블 BMG

 

 

 

 

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Kazuhito Yamashita (山下和仁?, born 1961 in Nagasaki) is a Japanese classical guitarist. His technique and ｅxpression are considered somewhat controversial.

 

Musical career

 

Yamashita began to study the guitar at the age of eight with his father, Toru Yamashita. In 1972, aged eleven, he won the Kyushu Guitar Competition. Four years later, he was awarded First Prize in the All Japan Guitar Competition. In 1977, he won three important international competitions - the Ramirez in Spain, the Alessandria in Italy and Paris Radio France Competition, being the youngest winner ever recorded.

 

In 1978, Yamashita made his debut in Japan and, in the following year, traveled to Europe. While still in his twenties, he made his first appearances in Canada's Toronto International Guitar Festival and gave a solo recital in the Musikverein (Grosser Saal) in Vienna, he also performed in the USA and UK. He gave solo recitals in concert halls around the world such as the Lincoln Centre and has performed with a variety of orchestras and conductors in Europe, North America and Asia. In 1989, the Casals Hall in Tokyo, considered to be one of the finest auditoriums in the world, presented a series called The World of Kazuhito Yamashita, comprising seven concerts in 12 months. The high point of the concerts was Castelnuovo-Tedesco's 24 Caprichos de Goya in a single performance. The series concluded with Bach's six sonatas and partitas over two consecutive nights; a recital series was continued in 1994 and 1999.

 

In addition to solo performances, Yamashita also plays duo, as well as with chamber music ensembles, orchestras and internationally acclaimed artists, such as Leonard Slatkin with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Antoni Ros Marbà, Garcia Navaro, Pedro Halffter, Hiroyuki Iwaki, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Orquesta de la RTVE, Claudio Scimone e I Solisti Veneti, James Galway (flute), Gary Karr (double bass), Michala Petri (recorder), The Tokyo String Quartet etc. In the 4th Santo Tirso International Guitar Festival, held in 1997, he played four guitar concertos in one night with the Cordoba orchestra, conducted by Leo Brouwer. Most recently, he is active in the guitar quartet Kazuhito Yamashita & Bambini. This quartet, consisting of Yamashita and his children, has performed at two international festivals in Italy, the Seoul Art Center in Korea, Portugal, Cordoba Festival in Spain, San Francisco Herbst Theatre and several cities throughout Japan.

 

Yamashita has an impressive list of almost 80 recordings and numerous original arrangements of such works as Mussorgski's Pictures at an Exhibition, Stravinsky's Firebird, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scherezade and Dvořák's Symphony of the New World. He has recorded for BMG (RCA), Crown Classics, Japan Victor, King Records and Alfa Records. His recordings include 16 CD's with the complete works of Fernando Sor, and a collection of 5 CD's containing J.S. Bach's sonatas and partitas for violin, cello, lute and flute (BWV 995-1013), all which he himself transcribed for the guitar. His long-awaited recording of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, released in 1981, merited the prestigious Deutsches Grammophon Award.

 

Yamashita is an enthusiastic proponent of new works for the guitar and has given the world premier of more than 60 new compositions. In this regard, his world premier and presentation of the works of the Japanese composer Keiko Fujiie is notable. In 1999, he received the National Arts Festival Grand Prize from the Japanese Government's Agency for Cultural Affairs for his CD recording of Japanese Guitar Music 1923-1948.

Yamashita's early arrangements of Pictures at an Exhibition, Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, Dvořák's New World Symphony no. 9 in E Minor, and others, broke boundaries in terms of solo guitar ｅxpression and virtuosity.

 

 

Critical reception

 

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Positive & negative reviews of Yamashita's playing, can be found in the literature.

 

 

Positive

 

Yamashita's interpretation of Britten ... captured the mood of each variation in a well-shaped and sensuously beautiful performance.

Yamashita has made a career of annexing orchestral classics to his kingdom of the guitar.

Yamashita is brilliant and flawless.[

Yamashita played with striking grace and precision.

Yamashita's Stravinsky is fascinating ... a work filled with a broad range of textures and timbres.

 

 

Negative

 

[...] J. S. Bach's Cello Suite #6 in D Major[...] Yamashita's performance was a major disappointment [...] The sixteenth note passage at the Prelude's conclusion, while technically impressive, was forced and created the impression of a mere virtuoso showpiece. The following movements each failed to convey the dance rhythm that is their essence. The Allemande and Sarabande were given such a flexible pulse that they simply meandered. The Courante, Gavottes and Gigue were characterized by a relentless drive and muscularity.

 

The second half of the program began with a group of arrangements of music of the Beatles. The original music is beautiful, and the guitar effects showed an impressive range, but overall I felt Yamashita loaded these evocative melodies with impressive guitar effects which did not serve the music.

[...] Pictures at an Exhibition, which he tackled Sunday, does not sound very good on the guitar. Surprisingly, even the delicate miniatures that might be expected to make the transition well, such as The Tuileries and the Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells, turned out to sound rather heavy and awkward. In the pieces with big climaxes, it was impossible not to miss the sonorities of the piano or orchestra, and Mr. Yamashita's playing became harsh and twangy, even though his use of balalaika-like strummed crescendos achieved startling power in Bydlo.

 

Yamashita [...] let the difference between playing a guitar and using a typewriter disappear.

It seemed as though he reshaped the musically demanding works of his program into technique-studies

His superficial "bravour" destroyed the coherence of compositions [...]

That Yamashita nevertheless obtained a great positive response from the almost 900 people in the audience, of which roughly a half were guitarists, can only be explained by the Fetish-character that technique has in our modern times. [...] Not far of me, in the midst of the roaring jubilation, I could see a well known lutenist sitting next to a prominent English composer who were looking at each other in a rather helpless and distressed manner. During a discussion they voiced the opinion that this was not music [...]