Otaka Hisatada

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Hisatada Otaka 1942

Otaka Hisatada ( Japanese 尾 高尚 忠 Otaka Hisatada , spelling sometimes also Odaka Hisatada ; born September 26, 1911 in Tokyo , Japan ; † February 16, 1951 ibid) was a Japanese composer and conductor .

Life

Otaka grew up in Tokyo. He received his first musical training at a young age in Vienna . At the Conservatory Tokyo he took from 1932 to 1934 composition lessons with Klaus Pringsheim . He then went back to Vienna and studied composition with Joseph Marx and conducting with Felix Weingartner at the Academy for Music and Performing Arts until 1938. He also took private lessons with Franz Joseph Moser (1880–1939). In 1936/37 he won the Weingartner Prize for his orchestral piece Japanese Suite No. 1 ( Nihon kumikyoku ), which he had awarded after a tour of Japan. After graduating in 1938, Otaka worked as a conductor and was able to - against the background of the rapprochement between the Nazi regime and Japan in the course of the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936 and the Three-Power Pact in 1940 - also leading orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic , the Vienna Symphony in the Musikverein and the Berliner Conducting the Philharmonic .

In 1940 he returned to Tokyo. From 1942 until his death he was chief conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra , at times in parallel with his colleague Joseph Rosenstock Otaka, who had emigrated from Germany , also conducted the first concert that his orchestra gave in September 1945 after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and after the end of the Pacific War gave. His symphony , composed in 1948, appeared in print in 1949 with the subtitle Praying for World Peace . Among his students was u. a. Hikaru Hayashi . Otaka died at the age of only 39 in February 1951. In his memory, the NHK Symphony Orchestra established the Otaka Prize for contemporary works of Japanese compositions, which was first awarded in 1952.

Create

As a composer, Otaka mainly left works for orchestra , including a symphony (1948), a Sinfonietta for strings (1937), 2 Japanese suites (1936, 1939), other symphonic compositions such as Midare (1938) and Vaterland (1939), a cello concerto (1943), a rhapsody for piano and orchestra (1943) and a flute concerto (1951). In addition, he wrote chamber music , a. a. a violin sonata (1932), 2 string quartets (1938, 1943) and a piano trio (1941). He also composed numerous piano works and songs. Stylistically, it is assigned to the tradition of German late romanticism , with national influences from Japanese music also being included. His aim was to find “new means of expression for the Japanese spirit” in European music.

Otaka's musical language remained committed to tonality and thus kept a distance from the then dominant musical modernity . In the Japanese Suites , but especially in the Flute Concerto (1951), there are influences from French composers such as Cécile Chaminade and Jean Françaix , echoes of Impressionism , but also jazzy elements. The second movement of the symphony reveals Richard Wagner's influences in its extended chromaticism . Prominent performers such as Jean-Pierre Rampal , Adam Walker and Emmanuel Pahud campaigned for the flute concerto with performances and recordings . Japanese conductors such as Yūzō Toyama and orchestras such as the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra , the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra presented individual works by Otaka as recordings.

As a conductor, Otaka sometimes presented his own works and current Japanese compositions in Europe. During his time as head of the NHK symphony orchestra, he continued to conduct a spectrum from Viennese classical music to Paul Hindemith . He also dealt with the French repertoire and played works a. a. by Camille Saint-Saëns and Jacques Ibert on record.

Others

Two sons from his marriage to the pianist Misaoko Otaka also became musicians. Atsutada Otaka (* 1944) works as a composer and conductor. Tadaaki Otaka (* 1947) works as a conductor in Japan, Great Britain and Australia, currently he is the music director of the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Nicolas Slonimsky, Laura Kuhn, Dennis McIntire: Otaka, Hisatada. In: Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. November 24, 2019, accessed November 25, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Masakata Kanazawa:  Otaka, Hisatada. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
  3. ↑ According to other sources, 1939 cf. Biography Masao Ohki in: naxos (english)
  4. ↑ Hans-Joachim Bieber: SS and Samurai. German-Japanese cultural relations 1933–1945 (=  monographs from the German Institute for Japanese Studies . Volume 55 ). Iudicium, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-86205-043-7 , pp. 623 (1311 pp., Full text in Google Book Search [accessed November 25, 2019]).
  5. ^ Hisatada Otaka , in: Archive of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra
  6. ↑ Misha Aster: "The Reich Orchestra". The Berlin Philharmonic and National Socialism . Siedler, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-88680-876-2 , p. 204 (400 pp.).
  7. ↑ a b Hans-Joachim Bieber: SS and Samurai. German-Japanese cultural relations 1933–1945 (=  monographs from the German Institute for Japanese Studies . Volume 55 ). Iudicium, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-86205-043-7 , pp. 756 (1311 pp., Full text in Google Book Search [accessed November 25, 2019]).
  8. ↑ Mayu Fujita: European Music in Japan's Music History . University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz 2016, p. 68 (121 pp., Docplayer.org [PDF; accessed on November 27, 2019] scientific master's thesis).
  9. ↑ Praying for World Peace - subtitle of the symphony printed in 1949 , on: stanford.edu (English)
  10. ↑ Hans-Joachim Bieber: SS and Samurai. German-Japanese cultural relations 1933–1945 (=  monographs from the German Institute for Japanese Studies . Volume 55 ). Iudicium, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-86205-043-7 , pp. 457 (1311 pp., Full text in Google Book Search [accessed November 25, 2019]).
  11. ↑ a b Glyn Pursglove: Unpretentious Intelligence in Otaka's Conducting. In: Seen and Heard International. April 2, 2013, accessed on November 25, 2019 (English, Otaka Tadaaki conducts his father's flute concerto, Otaka Hisatada).
  12. ^ Rian Evans: BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Otaka. In: The Guardian . March 31, 2013, accessed November 25, 2019 (English, review).
  13. ↑ Hisatada Otaka conducts on: Western music in Japan from 1923 to 1944. CD4, Japanese peformers at: Worldcat
  14. ^ Information about Atsutada Otaka in the catalog of the German National Library
  15. ↑ Tadaaki Otaka - Music Director in: osaka-phil (English), as of April 2018
Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Otaka is the family name, Hisatada the first name.
personal data
SURNAME Otaka, Hisatada
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 尾 高尚 忠 (Japanese); Odaka, Hisatada
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese composer
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Tokyo
DATE OF DEATH February 16, 1951
Place of death Tokyo