Okumura: Piano Sonata No.1 (1949) 2nd mov.

Описание: Hajime Okumura(1925-1994) was a Japanese composer in the post-war era. After completing his study in Tokyo University of the Arts under Akira Ifukube, he wrote the numerous film score, works for wind band, and pieces of piano. His compositional style is comparatively conservative but light and funny. He is famous of his transcriptions of Japanese folk tune (Especially, 'Otemoyan' was played by the virtuoso pianist Cherkassky).

He entered Tokyo Musical School (Musical department of Tokyo univ. of Arts in the later days), but in 1944 when the war situation got worse he was enrolled in Toyama Military School in Tokyo and played oboe and basson at the military band. Soon after the end of the war, he again entered Musical School.

Piano Sonata No.1 in three movements may be his first work after his recovery from loss of the war. He himself didn't go to war, but he was shocked to disasters and got into slump (possibly PTSD).

His teacher Akira Ifukube praised him a lot when he completed it in 1949. We can see he is strongly influenced by Prokofiev (he himself calls this sonata "War Sonata").

2nd movement(Grave) is Requiem for the victim of the war in the style of chorale. The base time is 4/4, but changed frequently. A campanella-like motif on the beginning appears sometimes.

I didn't recorded 3rd movement because I had no time to complete it by the anniversary of Pacific War and because that movement is not so good as the former two (This sonata has an anticlimax).

奥村一　ピアノソナタ第1番第2楽章(1949)