"Chamber music, honkyoku and contemporary music for shakuhachi, koto, sangen and voice."

Bruce Huebner
Zabu Tone Music
2000

Pista	Título	Kanji	Longitud	Artista
1	Sagari Ha no Kyoku	下り葉の曲	05'34	Shakuhachi: Bruce Huebner
	The kaede for Sagariha no Kyoku "Falling Leaves" was composed by the late Goro Yamaguchi (1933- 1999), the instructor of Kinko Shakuhachi at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music until his death.
2	Akebono no Uta	曙の歌	13'05	Shakuhachi: Bruce Huebner
	Akebono no Uta "Song or Daybreak" was composed in 1972 by the greatest post-war virtuoso of the koto, Tadao Sawai (1937-1997), for his brother who was a promising shakuhachi player about to begin his career. Saddened by the early death of his brother, Mr. Sawai shelved the piece leading to its long absence from the standard repertoire. The composer had the following to say about Akebono no Uta: "This work is programmatic in many respects. While the shakuhachi sings to the beauty of the dawn, the sound of the two koto evolves around the emerging new day. Birds chirp, clouds pan lazily and the sun glitters. A warm. sweet world unfolds as a dream is revealed. Although the work appears to be a trio, the two koto are unified into one part, thus forming a duet between shakuhachi and koto"(translated by Bruce Huebner.)
3	Chidori no Kyoku	千鳥の曲	06'15	Shakuhachi: Bruce Huebner Shakuhachi: Gunnar Jinmei Linder
	Chidori no Kyoku "Plovers" was originally composed for koto and voice by Kengyo Yoshizawa II (1800-1872). "Plovers" is one of the kokin gumi, a series of five pieces ("Spring", "Summer", "Fall", "Winter", and "Plovers") named after the Kokin Wakashu poetry collection from which their song texts are taken. Rather than use the usual format of koto and voice with added shakuhachi, we perform "Plovers" as a shakuhachi duet. Mr Linder plays the original koto line, composed sometime between 1831 and 37, while I play this unusual kaede obligato part written specifically for shakuhachi by Nomura Keikyu in 1925. Nomura was a figure in the prewar shakuhachi world, who lost his temper in an argument and stabbed a man to death. Because of this incident the "Plover" kaede and several other shakuhachi kaede for other koto pieces that he wrote, have been all but forgotten.
4	Tsuru no Koe	鶴の声	06'02	Shakuhachi: Bruce Huebner
	Instrumental music in Japan is closely linked to vocal music. Shakuhachi players, for example, learn pitch and rhythm by vocalizing, and much of shakuhachi ornamentation is derived from vocal and shamisen music. Kinko players have often joined sangen and koto players of the vocal music jiuta in collaboration, and through this jiuta has had a great influence on Kinko honkyoku. The close relation of the voice, string and shakuhachi lines is evident in Tsuru no Koe “The Crane’s Call”, one of the so-called hauta pieces within the jiuta repertoire, a Kamigata area (Kyoto/Osaka) chamber music developed by blind musicians. On this recording we used the longer 2.0 nishaku (two “foot” instrument tuned to C, rather than the standard 1.8 I’shaku, ha’sun (one “foot”, eight “inch”) instrument tuned to D, to facilitate the vocalist’s range. Synopsis of song text: Caught in a sudden shower, a young traveler takes cover under the eaves of a humble tree-thatched house by the road. A young woman comes out from the house, explains that the rain may take awhile to stop and invites the traveler inside. Since it is just to wait while the shower passes, he accepts. However, the rain continues, and eventually evening falls. Concerned that the road at night in the rain would be dangerous, the young woman asks him, if he can stand the poor house, to take shelter there for the night. The man hesitates at first; after all, he doesn’t know her and it appears that she is alone. In the end he decides to stay. Through the evening they talk and become more and more close. Eventually the man announces that he loves her. While she wonders to herself if a man who has just met her can really be sincere in his love, a single note of a crane’s call can be heard. This omen convinces her of his sincerity. They are eventually married and live together until they grow gray in their old age.
5	Haru no Umi	春の海	07'31	Shakuhachi: Bruce Huebner
	Michio Miyagi (1849-1956), one of the most prolific and original composes of koto music in the 20th century, compoased Haru no Umi "Spring Sea" in 1929 as an image of Japan's Inland Sea. "Spring Sea" was originally composed for shakuhachi and koto, but became a hit in 1932 after Miyagi recorded it with a French violinist. The opening phrases have become Japan's musical theme for the New Year's holiday. It is perhaps the finest example of the "New Japanese Music" movement of the 1920's, and is a rare and early success in the fusion of Western and Japanese musical elements.
6	Shika no Tōne (Kinko Ryū)	鹿の遠音	09'24	Shakuhachi: Bruce Huebner
7	Kajimakura	楫枕	16'48	Shakuhachi: Bruce Huebner
	Kaji Makura "A Rudder for My Pillow" is one of the finest examples of the kyofu tegoto mono, a sub-genre of sankyoku that reached its peak of development under Kengyo Kikuoka (1792-1847). The form is typical of tegoto mono: two vocal sections, called the mae uta and ato uta, are separated by an instrumental interlude called the tegoto. These song sections are further broken by short interludes called ai no te. Also typical is the addition by another composer, Kengyo Yaezaki (1776-1848) in this case, of a koto tetsuke much in the same manner as the shakuhachi kaede above. The middle tegoto instrumental section of "A Rudder for My Pillow" is atypically divided further into two dan or "steps," a form borrowed from an older koto genre called dan mono. These dan have an equal number of beats and can be played simultaneously to create another layer of polyphony. The melismatic singing style and text content is typical of the tegoto mono and jiuta in general. In Kaji Makura, a courtesan, her life drifting like the boat upon which she works, longs for a man who will forget her unseemly past and love her for her pure heart.
8	San'ya Sugagaki	三谷菅垣	06'53	Shakuhachi: Bruce Huebner
	Well before the social freedom that came with Japan's opening after 1867 and the subsequent dissolution of the Fuke sect, monks were in fact engaged in a variety of non-religious musical activities, and used shakuhachi for pleasure and profit. Among these was joining with jiuta shamisen, usually called the sangen (a three-string plectrum lute), and the koto (a 13-string, movable bridge zither), in a small ensemble called sankyoku. Another activity was the composition or improvisation of kaede, lines that were added to the honkyoku creating a shakuhachi duet called renkan. Sanya Sugagaki "Three Valleys" is an example of this practice. Polyphony was created within the confines of the miyako bushi scale (1, flat 2, 4, flat 5, minor 7) with lines moving in unisons, fourths, fifths and octaves, with striking exceptions such as the minor second in the third phrase.