2016.02.13

日比谷公会堂リニューアル前ファイナルイベント企画
〜ショスタコーヴィチ第９番・第15番演奏会

ショスタコーヴィチ : 交響曲 第9番・第15番 新日本フィルハーモニー交響楽団 ◆要葉書申込・2015/12/25(金)消印有効 http://hibiya-kokaido.com/final_concert.html

【Message】

Yesterday and today, the last concerts for the Hibiya Public Hall took place before its renovation, or rather, I myself produced these events.
Let’s watch altogether how this old hall, situated at the center of Japan in a manner of speaking, will be beautifully preserved as a place full of memories.

For brevity, I won't write here the history of this hall, as it’s been talked about and written about in many other settings. But I have to mention that even while the war burned away almost all the buildings in Tokyo, orchestral concerts had still been given there, like in Leningrad during the Blockade. Even though some people would dismiss this cynically as a state sponsored propaganda ploy by the government of the time, the fact remains that many people genuinely chose to attend and perform for their own joy and satisfaction.

Mr. Oshima who turned ninety years old several years ago, a music fan whom I met for the first time yesterday, told me: “On March 10th 1945, I, living on borrowed time, desperately went to a subscription concert of the Japan Symphony Orchestra (currently NHK Symphony Orchestra). Although Tokyo was firebombed atrociously by the US Air Force before dawn on the day, the concert took place at the Hibiya Public Hall. The audience was less than a hundred people and many musicians were missing, but surprisingly, The Firebird was the main piece performed.”
If we had to live through the war, I think things would turn out a lot like this story…

When I conducted the complete symphonies of Shostakovich eight years ago, I was willing to release the live recording as a sort of souvenir from those sessions but some imperfections prevented me from making it public. Since then, it had been weighing on my mind. At last, I have become able to release the complete symphonies on disc. The preparation, especially editing, however, needs a little more time.

I was in good spirits as February 13th was blessed by the weather, but my mind and body were both very tired.

I have to name many people who warmly supported this project; Reiko Yukawa assisted at a rehearsal to cheer us on. “My wife in my dreams” Tetsuko Kuroyanagi came to listen to our performance. Yoko Ono sent us beautiful flowers. All the members of the Executive Committee for the Events Celebrating the 80th Anniversary of the Hibiya Public Hall truly bear the future of the hall. I’m also grateful to those who think deeply about the hall’s future for sake of the citizens of Tokyo, and those who applied for a concert ticket to feel the connection between Hibiya and the classical music.

Also, I’d like to thank the members of the now defunct Japan Shostakovich Society that I invited to the events, those who kindly answered questionnaires and those who became new Shostakovich fans. My family, friends, acquaintances, lovers, girlfriends and people who are too odd to name here. My seniors who I have fought with and leaned from. I’m thankful to leading Japanese orchestra players like, Eiji Arai who is knowledgeable about Shostakovich, Munsu Choi and Mr. Sakurai who was in charge of the long recording.

The scholar of Russian literature Fumiko Hitotsuyanagi has encouraged me for years and discovered numerous keys in Shostakovich’s works. The son of Sollertinskii (who was Shostakovich’s close friend) told me about many things in Saint Petersburg and often accompanied me when I traveled in Russia by sleeping train car to conduct orchestras there.

The cellist Leonid Gulchin who wonderfully performs in the Gunma Symphony Orchestra lured me again to Saint Petersburg. I will never forget his great father. Also, I still feel a close link with Mr. Yamada and Mr. and Mrs. Fujimori that I met there.

Many thanks to; my excellent manager Shinji Ogura with KAJIMOTO. Nobuhiro Yamashita with the Takenaka Corporation, Shoji Sato, Yuji Arai and Mine Okamoto who toiled in fund raising eight years ago for my Shostakovich complete symphonies project, which was the beginning of things. Naoto Otomo mediated between me and the Hibiya Public Hall.

I’d like to express my gratitude to Mrs. Onikubo and Ryu Goto who are trying to forge a new path of the long-running show “Untitled Concert” on TV Asahi, and, above all else, Mr. Kikumoto, the director of the Hibiya Public Hall.

I think of my beloved teachers, too; Hideo Saito, Takashi Masuda, Chieko Hattori, Hiroshi Shimada, Yuko Yamaoka, Keiko Kanazawa, Akira Miyoshi, Claudio Abbado, Sergiu Celibidache, Carlo Maria Giulini, Carlo Zecchi, Alberto Zedda, Herbert von Karajan... I didn’t get a chance to study Shostakovich’s music with them, but even if I had invited them, they couldn’t have come to the events as they all have passed away.

Also, I miss my friend late Kazuo Ikeda with KBS (Kyoto Broadcasting System), who broadcasted via television each subscription concert of the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra I was conducting for. I still remember, in the 1990s, having conducted recklessly Shostakovich’s 7th symphony to fight against the atrocious acoustics of the former Kyoto Kaikan Hall…

Ah, the names are too uncountable to write down here, so now I’ll give up on doing that.