Tomorrow, September 28th (Thursday), I have some urgent business to attend to, so
I'll be taking the day off.
However, the day after tomorrow (Saturday) is
our regular closing day anyway, so
I'm going ahead and taking Friday off as well.
On July 11th, conductor Yūzō Toyama passed away.
He was 92 years old. My condolences to his family.
Professor Toyama became Music Advisor to the Osaka Symphony Orchestra
in 2016 and assumed the position of Honorary Conductor
in 2020. Around 2017-2018, before COVID,
he wrote a regular column spanning several pages in each issue of the program booklet
distributed at the entrance to concerts.
This column covered what you might call a "behind-the-scenes" history of post-war Japanese music—
extremely fascinating stuff, with some rather risky content casually sprinkled throughout.
He apparently intended to compile it into a book eventually,
but the column was suspended around 2018.
The articles weren't in Toyama's own handwriting but rather
transcribed from interviews in dialogue form,
so there were undoubtedly many stories that got cut for publication.
The interviewer could probably steer the conversation to some degree,
but what was fascinating was that the really risky stuff seemed to get rejected
while the genuinely questionable content made it through.
The censored stories must have been so dangerous that
the judgment of those deciding what to publish had become completely desensitized.
Toyama's father was a vocalist named Kunihiko Toyama, so it was a musical family.
His father and composer-conductor Kosaku Yamada, famous for "The Waiting Husband,"
were born just a year apart and got along well.
Toyama said he was often spoiled by Yamada as a child, but because his family was wealthy
and their mansion was the largest in town,
it was requisitioned by the Japanese military during World War II.
He recalls thinking as a child at the time: "Even though I'm making do with meager meals
since the war started, the soldiers who requisitioned our house
are having drinking parties every single day—why is that?"
This story apparently wasn't deemed too risky, because until recently
it was still readable if you dug through the Osaka Symphony Orchestra's website.
Japan normalized diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1956, and
in 1960, when the NHK Symphony Orchestra made
the first overseas concert tour by a Japanese orchestra,
Professor Toyama was among the members.
When they performed in Moscow, the staff at the Japanese Embassy
thoughtfully prepared rice balls for several dozen people,
which was wonderful. But apparently there were suspicions that
Japanese intelligence agents were mixed in among the orchestra members, because
KGB-like people kept watch on them the whole time—he said it was terrifying.
This story was apparently deemed too risky and
shouldn't appear in any publication besides the original booklet.
The Soviet composer Shostakovich adapted a novel with the same name into an opera called
"Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District," which premiered in 1934.
It tells the story of a woman in her twenties who becomes the second wife of a merchant in his fifties,
commits adultery with a servant in the household, and then murders both her father-in-law and husband.
The dialogue is vulgar and provocative, and there's even a scene where an orchestra represents the sounds of sex,
making it quite shocking even by today's standards.
Though the premiere was successful, Stalin, who attended, was so enraged by the content
that he left partway through. Days later,
Shostakovich was thoroughly criticized in an article in Pravda newspaper—
this became known as the "Pravda Denunciation."
Pravda means "Truth" and still exists today as a daily newspaper, but
at the time it was the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,
and Pravda's editorials were understood to reflect Stalin's will.
Shostakovich completed his Fourth Symphony in 1936, but
he abandoned plans for a premiere under pressure from authorities. It wasn't premiered until 25 years later,
8 years after Stalin's death, in 1961.
His Fifth Symphony, which followed, was filled with militaristic marching sounds
and was the sort of thing Stalin would smile upon, so
Shostakovich achieved a measure of (party) rehabilitation.
His "Song of the Forests," premiered in 1949, was a piece pandering to the regime,
celebrating Soviet reforestation efforts, but
following the post-Stalin wave of Stalin criticism that couldn't happen while he was alive,
parts of the lyrics were revised in 1961.
Around the time of the Pravda Denunciation, avant-garde artists (as the Party saw them),
including Shostakovich's friends, were imprisoned and executed in quick succession.
However, because Shostakovich was already a composer representing the nation,
authorities found it difficult to actually arrest him.
During this period—from the Pravda Denunciation through at least Stalin's lifetime—
Professor Toyama actually met Shostakovich in person and
warned him not to get sent to Siberia.
As for NHK, it possesses vast quantities of invaluable audio recordings and video footage
from Japan's classical music world.
A certain individual (whose name I've forgotten) who understood their value
had maintained meticulous classification and storage, but
after he retired, management became sloppy.
With warehouse reorganizations and building relocations, a considerable amount of material was either
discarded or lost—
Professor Toyama criticized NHK's careless resource management in his column.
...That turned out to be his final installment, and
the column never appeared in the booklet again.
Apparently NHK expressed their displeasure with the content.
Rather than saying NHK pressured him to stop the column,
it's more likely that when they expressed their displeasure,
Professor Toyama got stubborn and said something like "But it's the truth!"—
and that's what led to the column being discontinued.
Even if there were some lapses in Professor Toyama's memory, or
if there were occasional exaggerations or distortions that favored his perspective,
it's truly regrettable that we've permanently lost the opportunity to hear
vivid accounts of post-war Japanese music history.
Ah, if this article gets drastically cut after the closing notice announcement,
assume that some kind of pressure was applied.
Our shop once came dangerously close to closing because we
touched on something untouchable (→here),
so since then I've been careful about what I say and do (to some extent).
I'll be taking the day off.
However, the day after tomorrow (Saturday) is
our regular closing day anyway, so
I'm going ahead and taking Friday off as well.
On July 11th, conductor Yūzō Toyama passed away.
He was 92 years old. My condolences to his family.
Professor Toyama became Music Advisor to the Osaka Symphony Orchestra
in 2016 and assumed the position of Honorary Conductor
in 2020. Around 2017-2018, before COVID,
he wrote a regular column spanning several pages in each issue of the program booklet
distributed at the entrance to concerts.
This column covered what you might call a "behind-the-scenes" history of post-war Japanese music—
extremely fascinating stuff, with some rather risky content casually sprinkled throughout.
He apparently intended to compile it into a book eventually,
but the column was suspended around 2018.
The articles weren't in Toyama's own handwriting but rather
transcribed from interviews in dialogue form,
so there were undoubtedly many stories that got cut for publication.
The interviewer could probably steer the conversation to some degree,
but what was fascinating was that the really risky stuff seemed to get rejected
while the genuinely questionable content made it through.
The censored stories must have been so dangerous that
the judgment of those deciding what to publish had become completely desensitized.
Toyama's father was a vocalist named Kunihiko Toyama, so it was a musical family.
His father and composer-conductor Kosaku Yamada, famous for "The Waiting Husband,"
were born just a year apart and got along well.
Toyama said he was often spoiled by Yamada as a child, but because his family was wealthy
and their mansion was the largest in town,
it was requisitioned by the Japanese military during World War II.
He recalls thinking as a child at the time: "Even though I'm making do with meager meals
since the war started, the soldiers who requisitioned our house
are having drinking parties every single day—why is that?"
This story apparently wasn't deemed too risky, because until recently
it was still readable if you dug through the Osaka Symphony Orchestra's website.
Japan normalized diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1956, and
in 1960, when the NHK Symphony Orchestra made
the first overseas concert tour by a Japanese orchestra,
Professor Toyama was among the members.
When they performed in Moscow, the staff at the Japanese Embassy
thoughtfully prepared rice balls for several dozen people,
which was wonderful. But apparently there were suspicions that
Japanese intelligence agents were mixed in among the orchestra members, because
KGB-like people kept watch on them the whole time—he said it was terrifying.
This story was apparently deemed too risky and
shouldn't appear in any publication besides the original booklet.
The Soviet composer Shostakovich adapted a novel with the same name into an opera called
"Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District," which premiered in 1934.
It tells the story of a woman in her twenties who becomes the second wife of a merchant in his fifties,
commits adultery with a servant in the household, and then murders both her father-in-law and husband.
The dialogue is vulgar and provocative, and there's even a scene where an orchestra represents the sounds of sex,
making it quite shocking even by today's standards.
Though the premiere was successful, Stalin, who attended, was so enraged by the content
that he left partway through. Days later,
Shostakovich was thoroughly criticized in an article in Pravda newspaper—
this became known as the "Pravda Denunciation."
Pravda means "Truth" and still exists today as a daily newspaper, but
at the time it was the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,
and Pravda's editorials were understood to reflect Stalin's will.
Shostakovich completed his Fourth Symphony in 1936, but
he abandoned plans for a premiere under pressure from authorities. It wasn't premiered until 25 years later,
8 years after Stalin's death, in 1961.
His Fifth Symphony, which followed, was filled with militaristic marching sounds
and was the sort of thing Stalin would smile upon, so
Shostakovich achieved a measure of (party) rehabilitation.
His "Song of the Forests," premiered in 1949, was a piece pandering to the regime,
celebrating Soviet reforestation efforts, but
following the post-Stalin wave of Stalin criticism that couldn't happen while he was alive,
parts of the lyrics were revised in 1961.
Around the time of the Pravda Denunciation, avant-garde artists (as the Party saw them),
including Shostakovich's friends, were imprisoned and executed in quick succession.
However, because Shostakovich was already a composer representing the nation,
authorities found it difficult to actually arrest him.
During this period—from the Pravda Denunciation through at least Stalin's lifetime—
Professor Toyama actually met Shostakovich in person and
warned him not to get sent to Siberia.
As for NHK, it possesses vast quantities of invaluable audio recordings and video footage
from Japan's classical music world.
A certain individual (whose name I've forgotten) who understood their value
had maintained meticulous classification and storage, but
after he retired, management became sloppy.
With warehouse reorganizations and building relocations, a considerable amount of material was either
discarded or lost—
Professor Toyama criticized NHK's careless resource management in his column.
...That turned out to be his final installment, and
the column never appeared in the booklet again.
Apparently NHK expressed their displeasure with the content.
Rather than saying NHK pressured him to stop the column,
it's more likely that when they expressed their displeasure,
Professor Toyama got stubborn and said something like "But it's the truth!"—
and that's what led to the column being discontinued.
Even if there were some lapses in Professor Toyama's memory, or
if there were occasional exaggerations or distortions that favored his perspective,
it's truly regrettable that we've permanently lost the opportunity to hear
vivid accounts of post-war Japanese music history.
Ah, if this article gets drastically cut after the closing notice announcement,
assume that some kind of pressure was applied.
Our shop once came dangerously close to closing because we
touched on something untouchable (→here),
so since then I've been careful about what I say and do (to some extent).