Japan: Kabuki & Other Traditional Music
-
72084
Track Listing
-
13:39
-
23:15
-
34:54
-
410:06
-
55:39
-
67:17
-
76:15
-
86:05
News & Reviews
-
The reissue of the groundbreaking Nonesuch Explorer Series titles from Japan is now complete, with the recent addition of two more titles. The Independent exclaims, "It's wonderful that Nonesuch is reissuing the 92-LP Explorer Series, which put ethnomusicology on the map in the Seventies," and says of the recently reissued Koto Classics: "[I]t's wonderful to hear once more koto master Shinichi Yuize in his prime ... and these classic pieces display [the koto's] suggestive power to the full."
"Never again will a record company essay what the producers of the Nonesuch Explorers did in 1967, bringing out a series of superb field recordings to make, eventually, a 92-record set," says The Scotsman in its five-star review of the two titles that marked the reissue of a number of Japanese Explorer Series albums on CD this fall: Koto Classics and Geza Music from the Kabuki. "The vinyl LPs ... brought to light a wealth of hitherto hidden traditions," says the review, and their return as remastered CDs "is simply wonderful, because much of this music—four decades on—is now either extinct or grievously debased."
-
Credits
MUSICIANS
Ensemble Nipponia:
Hirokazu Sugiura, shamisen
Yukiko Ōta, shamisen
Kōhei Nishikawa, shinobue & nohkan
Kōhachiro Miyata, shakuhachi
Kifu Mitsuhashi, shakuhachi
Ayako Handa, voice & biwa
Keiko Nosaka, koto
Naritoshi Tōsha, ko-tsuzumi
Taichi Ozaki, ō-tsuzumi
Hiromitsu Katada, percussion
Akikuni Takahashi, percussion
Minoru Miki, directorPRODUCTION CREDITS
Originally released in 1980 (H-72084)
Produced & engineered by David Lewiston
Recorded October 1978, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York
Mastered by Robert C. Ludwig (Masterdisk Corp.)
Coordinator: Teresa Sterne
Special thanks to the Asia Society’s Performing Arts Program and its director Beate Gordon for aid and advice in the preparation of this recording.
Re-mastered by Robert C. Ludwig
Design: Doyle Partners
More From
The Japanese traditions of narrative and instrumental music exist independently of one another but flow together in the music of the Japanese theater. This album features four of the most popular dance pieces from the Kabuki stage, an excerpt from one of the great narrative epics, and music from three purely instrumental traditions.
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Originally released in 1980 (H-72084)
Produced & engineered by David Lewiston
Recorded October 1978, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York
Mastered by Robert C. Ludwig (Masterdisk Corp.)
Coordinator: Teresa Sterne
Special thanks to the Asia Society’s Performing Arts Program and its director Beate Gordon for aid and advice in the preparation of this recording.
Re-mastered by Robert C. Ludwig
Design: Doyle Partners

72084
MUSICIANS
Ensemble Nipponia:
Hirokazu Sugiura, shamisen
Yukiko Ōta, shamisen
Kōhei Nishikawa, shinobue & nohkan
Kōhachiro Miyata, shakuhachi
Kifu Mitsuhashi, shakuhachi
Ayako Handa, voice & biwa
Keiko Nosaka, koto
Naritoshi Tōsha, ko-tsuzumi
Taichi Ozaki, ō-tsuzumi
Hiromitsu Katada, percussion
Akikuni Takahashi, percussion
Minoru Miki, director