Kosaku Yamada

nihongo|Kosaku Yamada|山田耕筰|"Yamada Kōsaku", (9 June 1886 - 29 December 1965) was a Japanese composer and conductor.

In many Western reference books his name is given as Kósçak Yamada. During his music study in the Imperial German capital of Berlin from 1910-13 he hated the moment when people laughed at him because his "normal" transliteration of his first name "Kosaku" sounded like the Italian "cosa" meaning "what" or "thing" + the German "Kuh" meaning "cow"; which resulted in his choosing a somewhat fanciful transliteration of Kósçak Yamada ever since. Yamada was born and died in Tokyo.

After studying at the Tokyo Music School, he left Japan for Germany where he enrolled in the Berlin Hochschule and learnt composition, before going to the USA for two years.

Yamada left about 1600 pieces of music. Especially, songs ("Lieder") amount to 700 pieces of music excluding songs for schools, municipalities and companies. They were performed and recorded by many singers which include Kathleen Battle, Ernst Haefliger and Yoshikazu Mera. His opera "Kurofune (The Black Ships)" is regarded as one of the famous Japanese operas.

As a conductor, Yamada made an effort to introduce many orchestral works to Japan. He was the first performer in Japan of Debussy's "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune", Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, Gershwin's "An American in Paris", Mosolov's "Iron Foundry", Sibelius' "Finlandia", Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1, Johann Strauss II's "An der schönen blauen Donau", and Wagner's "Siegfried Idyll".

Major works

Opera

*"Ayame" (1931)
*"Kurofune" (The Black Ships) (1929-40)
*"Hsìang Fei" (1946) (four acts, seven scenes with a proemnia)

Other stage works

*"Maria Magdarena" after the drama of M. Maeterlinck (1916)

Orchestral

*Overture in D major (1912)
*Symphony in F major "Triumph and Peace" (1912)
*"The Dark Gate"; symphonic poem (1913)
*"Sinfonia "Inno Meiji" (1921)
*Nagauta Symphony "Tsurukame" for voice, shamisen and orchestra (1934)

Chamber

*String Quartet No. 1 in F major
*String Quartet No. 2 in G major
*String Quartet No. 3 in C minor
*"Hochzeitsklange" for piano quintet (1913)
*"Chanson triste japonaise" for violin and piano (1921)
*"Suite japonaise" for violin and piano (1924)
*"Variations on Kono-michi" for flute and piano (1930)

Piano

*"Variationen" (1912)
*"The Chimes of the Dawn" (1916)
*"Les poèmes à Scriabin" (1917)
*"Karatachi no hana [Karatachi-no-hana] " for piano solo (1928)

Choral

*"Die Herbstfeier" for mixed chorus and orchestra (1912)

ongs

*"Song of AIYAN" (1922)
*"Lullaby from the Chugoku Area [Chugoku chihō no komoriuta] "
*"Karatachi no hana [Karatachi-no-hana] "
*"Pechika"
*"Kono michi [This Road] "
*"Akatombo [Red Dragonfly] "
*"Yuu-in"

Recordings

*" Yamada Kosak Memorial Album - Quince Blossoms - Columbia BLS-4001 (1966?)
* [http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.557971 Recording of Nagauta Symphony, "Tsurukame", etc.]

Bibliography

* Herd, Judith Ann. 1996. "Westliche Musik und die Entstehung einer japanischen Avantgarde", translated by Annemarie Guignard and Elisabeth Seebass. In "Musik in Japan: Aufsätze zu Aspekten der Musik im heutigen Japan", edited by Silvain Guignard, 219–40. Munich: Iudicium, 1996. ISBN 3891292996
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