Piano and string dynasty

Two Japanese virtuosos will make a couple of spellbinding appearances, says WILLIAM DART.


We are used to hearing the stars and luminaries of the international concert stage through the NZSO, Auckland Philharmonia and Chamber Music New Zealand but, occasionally, they come to us through less expected avenues.

Violinist Rieko Suzuki and pianist/composer Yuji Takahashi are in town this week, thanks to the sponsorship of the Japan Foundation, the Rohm Music Foundation and the Nomura Cultural Foundation.

This distinguished duo has a couple of engagements at the University School of Music which deserve to be marked high priority in your concert engagement diary.

Tonight, in a free masterclass, there's the opportunity to hear Takahashi talking about his music, as well as the two musicians previewing some of the pieces they will perform in their Friday night concert, a programme with the extremely modest ticket price of $20.

The elegant Suzuki is one of her country's leading violinists. Like the American Joshua Bell, she was a student of the Josef Gingold in Indiana, and she made her name leading orchestras such as the New Japan Philharmonic and having a thriving solo career.

Among her many recordings is a spirited version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons with the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra.

I was lucky to preview this remarkable musician's work through her latest CD, From the Orient. This is an utterly bewitching collection of music from China, Korea, Japan and ... New Zealand.

The Kiwi offering is Jack Body's Aeolian Harp, an understated piece of virtuosity which has the violinist play only in gossamer-like harmonics, creating a sound like a breeze wafting over a sea of reeds.

Years ago Body told me Suzuki was a name to watch, a violinist "with a tone of refined, aristocratic silkiness". I was not disappointed, and nor will punters be on Friday night when she plays Aeolian Harp in concert.

Suzuki's CD is just under an hour of enchantment. A number of the pieces are folksong arrangements, with her violin negotiating timeless melodies with shuddering delicacy.

Western traditions are noted in a meditation for solo violin on the theme from Bach's The Musical Offering turned every which way by Korean composer Isang Yun.

In Auckland on Friday night we are in for a bouquet of delights. The first is John Cage's 1947 Nocturne for Violin and Piano.

Back in March, I reviewed the new Naxos CD of the chamber music of Toru Takemitsu. Suzuki and Takahashi give us two of the master's works, the bold 1966 Hika, inspired by a love poem by the great surrealist poet Takiguchi, and the gorgeous Les yeux clos in which an Odilon Redon painting seems to spring to a new life in sound.

Suzuki's concert partner, Yuji Takahashi, has been in the forefront of Japanese music for decades. His recordings range from the first, classic account of John Cage's Concerto for Prepared Piano to his own 1996 Finger light, a fascinating release on John Zorn's Tzadik label, which combines piano with Japanese traditional instruments.

Takahashi has studied with Xenakis, formed an ensemble (the marvellously titled Water Buffalo Band) to perform Asian protest songs, and has been a leading figure in interactive computer-based music.

When Body sums him up as "an iconic musician and an extraordinary pianist, a highly individual composer, and an original and profound musical thinker", it almost seems an underestimation.

Suzuki and Takahashi perform a number of his works on Friday, including the recent Parang sae, a soothing, politically charged folksong arrangement.

Most beautiful of all will be the unaccompanied Sieben Rosen hat ein Strauch, a musical rendering of one of Brecht's most fragile love songs, taking as its starting point two simple ballad verses:

Seven roses on the bush

Six belong to the wind

One will stay there, so there's just

One for me to find.

Seven times I'll summon you

Six times stay away

But the seventh, promise me

Come without delay.

In real life, there is no time to wait for the seventh rose if you are to catch one of the most enterprising concerts of the season. Rieko Suzuki and Yuji Takahashi are not to be missed.


* Where & when: Masterclass, University Music Annexe, 23 Wynyard St, tonight at 5; Concert, University Music Theatre, Friday, 7.30pm