Fumio Hayasaka

Fumio Hayasaka (早坂文雄 "Hayasaka Fumio" August 19, 1914 - October 15, 1955) was a Japanese composer of classical music and film scores.

Hayasaka was born in Sendai on the main Japanese island of Honshū. In 1918, Hayasaka and his family moved to Sapporo on the northern island of Hokkaidō.

He was a church organist as a young man and wrote his first original composition, "Prelude for Two Hymns", in 1936. Other early works include a "Nocturne" (1936) for piano and the orchestral "Ancient Dance" (1938).

In 1939, Hayasaka moved to Tokyo to begin a career as film composer. After the Second World War, he began a celebrated (though short-lived) association with the pre-eminent Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Among the films Hayasaka scored for Kurosawa are Stray Dog (1949), Rashomon (1950), Ikiru (1952) and The Seven Samurai (1954). During the 1950's, Hayasaka also created the scores for some of the final works of another Japanese master filmmaker, Kenji Mizoguchi. Hayasaka composed music for Ugetsu (1953), Sansho the Bailiff (1954), and The Crucified Lovers (1954).

During his time in Tokyo, Hayasaka also wrote several notable concert works including "Ancient Dances of the Left and on the Right" (1941), a "Piano Concerto" (1948) and the orchestral suite "Yukara" (1955).

Hayasaka served as a musical mentor to both Masaru Satō and Tōru Takemitsu.

In 1955, Hayasaka died of tuberculosis at the age of 41. For his memory, as a hommage, Tōru Takemitsu wrote his Requiem for strings (1957).

Hayasaka's Style

Hayasaka's early musical style was late-Romantic with influences of traditional Japanese music. In the years before his death his style drifted towards atonality and modernism.

Selected List of Classical Works

"Prelude for Two Hymns" (1936)

"Ancient Dance" (1938)

"Overture in D" (1939)

"Ancient Dances on the Left and on the Right" (1941)

"Four unaccompanied songs to poems by Haruo Sato for solo soprano" (1944)

"Piano Concerto" (1948)

"String Quartet" (1950)

"Suite in Seven Parts" (1952)

"Metamorphosis for orchestra" (1953)

"Yukara" (1955)