SACD ISO: DST64 2.0, 5.1 (4.0) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Electronic, Classical | 2,39 GbThe creative music woven out of the synthesizer by the composer Isao Tomita for the past five years has been a wonder of a glorious new development in music.
In Japan his name has almost become synonomous with synthesizer music, and he has also become a hero to those young people who wish to listen to a sound coming from over the horizon.
Even more vigorous attention has been given to Tomita’s synthesizer music in America, and every album he has released through RCA Records has reached a top-ranking position on the charts.
During 1977-79 there was a worldwide space-fantasy boom.
Synthesizer music came to be identified as the space sound, and Tomita became one of the champions of “the outer-space sound”.
While recognizing that Mr.
Tomita no doubt contributed to the creation of space sound, it is questionable whether or not this trend was applaudable, because the musical motivation of using the synthesizer is not to make a sound that cannot be produced by people but to expand the sonic potential of human beings over and beyond what has been accomplished heretofore.
With this album – Bolero – Mr.
Tomita has returned to his original stance in synthesizer music, to that of his first album, Snowflakes are Dancing.
This means that he has come back to his favorite period of French music, that of Debussy and Ravel.
Not only has he returned to this period but he shows himself as a dramatic musician and, furthermore, as a lyrical composer.
His drama and romanticism are clearly discernable in his performances of Ravel’s music.
Mr.
Tomita is not trying to analyze and arrange it through an oscillator.
On the contrary, he is revealing Ravel’s innocent mind and playing his orchestral pieces with the greatest admiration through the use of his synthesizer.
In a synthesizer performance there cannot be a wrong manipulation of fingering, but what fun would it be without the suspense of a possible slip of the hand? Mr.
Tomita recognizes this in performing on his synthesizer – he portrays the music as if it were played by human beings.
Thanks to the extremely exquisite musical quality of these selections, Mr.
Tomita has the opportunity to exercise his sensitivity in extracting their dramatic essence, even to the point of human “breathing”.
This quality is very difficult to obtain from mechanical devices, but now his synthesizer has begun to show the human element of breathing, and there is a birth of new life in his music-making.
According to Mr.
Tomita, he was inspired to insert this element while watching the dancing of Tamasaburo, the famous Kabuki actor.
Ravel and Tomita go back to the innocence of childhood and bring us colorful, beautiful, resonant sounds of nostalgia for that sweet period of life.
01. Daphnis Et Chloé, Suite No. 2DaybreakPantomimeGeneral Dance02. Pavane For A Dead Princess03. Boléro04. Mother Goose Suite – Pavane Of The Sleeping Beauty05. Mother Goose Suite – Hop-O’-My-Thumb06. Mother Goose Suite – Laideronnette, Empress Of The Pagodas07. Mother Goose Suite – Conversations Of Beauty And The Beast08. Mother Goose Suite – The Fairy Garden