You might be able to relate. There is music, that has shaped your life. It is the music you go back to when you are happy, nostalgic, heartbroken or just re-evaluating your life.
When talking Japan there is one artist, who has entered my life in my twenties and has always been part ever since: Sakamoto Ryuichi.
I first consciously encountered his music when I started studying Japanese, not knowing that he was one the composers for the Last Emporer, a movie I adored and still think of as a must see.
One of my fellow students at the Japanese course then made the formal introduction with the album “Beauty”. It took me a moment to warm up to it but once I connected, I could not stop listening. I am not a music critic and I will not even try to explain what makes it so special but at the time for me it was the mixture of 80ies pop and the traditional Japanese sounds being brought together in such a way that it felt exotic and familiar at the same time.
One of the most famous pieces is his cross over with a traditional song from Okinawa.
But that was not all, Olaf is quite a cineaste and made me watch “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence”. Probably one of the most brutal movies I have ever seen. Not only starring Sakamoto Ryuichi, Takeshi Kitano (you might remember Takeshi’s castle) but also David Bowie. The director of this movie was Oshima Nagisa. Little did I know at the time that he should be the centre of my master thesis, though not by choice. But the music written by Sakamoto, left an impression on my soul that has never lost its power so far. Not because it was violent in itself but just one of the most wonderful pieces of piano music I have ever encountered.
At some stage I “lost track” of his music, but started to write my master thesis which was about a more political topic discussed in the film that made Oshima Nagisa leave Japan. I am not going to bore you but if you want to know more about it look up: Nihon no yoru to kiri.
From time to time I would go back to the old cds and then came across an album for which he collaborated with father and daughter Morelenbaum called “A day in New York”. Again different, again amazing and for me solidifying his reputation for being one of the most versatile artists of his time. This is one of his older pieces, that originally was written in Japanese. Here it is being sung in Portuguese.
Somehow I then got wind of the fact that he was on tour and because the concert in Paris was the only one I could sensibly travel to, I bought a ticket for the concert and a flight to Paris.
This was the first and only time that I traveled to a different country to see an artist live and it was a revelation.
I cannot start to explain why this might have been the best concert I ever went to. He went on this tour with father Morelenbaum and a young violinist. Everything was just perfect and when he played by himself at the end of the concert I could have listened for hours without end.
That was the moment when I decided to rent a piano to learn just that one piece of music: Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence.
Needless to say, that I am still far from mastering it. But if nothing else, that is the one thing I want to accomplish.
This link is the version that shows him playing it for the last time for an imaginary audience in his last so to speak concert. He already knew, that he was going to die of cancer and his son filmed him playing his own selection for the very last time in a studio. The film “Opus” is amazing and worth your time. It is all in black and white but you will never before have seen so many shades of it. So much so that one could say it has its own color. The film shows Sakamoto’s genius but also his vulnerability.
Sakamoto Ryuichi died on March 28th 2023 in Tokyo.
His music will live on.
One Year - Five Continents 