Ohzawa - Piano Concerto No 3 'Kamikaze' - Saranceva, RPO, Yablonsky (2003)
Hisato Ohzawa (大澤壽人 Ōzawa Hisato) (1907 - 1953) - Piano Concerto No. 3 in A-Flat Major, Kamikaze (1938)
0:00 Larghetto maestoso - Allegro assai
10:23 Andante cantabile
18:21 Allegro moderato - Allegro vivace
Ekaterina Saranceva, piano
Russian Philharmonic Orchestra conduced by Dmitry Yablonsky
Recorded at Studio No.5, “KULTURA” Russian State TV & Radio Company, Moscow, 7-11th October 2003
Hisato Ohzawa, one of the foremost Japanese composers of the first half of the twentieth century, studied in the 1930s in Boston and Paris. He had an excellent command of diverse styles derived from his extensive knowledge of jazz, late Romanticism, Debussy, Ravel, Bartók, Hindemith and other contemporary composers. The Piano Concerto No. 3 ‘Kamikaze’ (a Japanese-made civil aircraft of that time, which set a new record for the shortest flight from Tokyo to London in 1937) shares something of the motoric dynamism of Honegger and Prokofiev.
Piano Concerto No. 3 was written between February and May 1938 and first performed in Osaka on 24th June by the Takarazuka Symphony Orchestra, under Ohzawa, with the pianist Maxim Shapiro, a pupil of Medtner then living in Japan. The work, while using a radical vocabulary, seeks to find some ties with the Japanese audience by adopting popular jazz elements in the middle movement and making the most of late romantic virtuosity in the solo part of the outer. The work had the fashionable title Kamikaze (the wind of God), the name of a civil aeroplane well known in those days and to which Ohzawa dedicated the concerto. The name of the aircraft had no connection with the wartime use of the name, but represented an important feat in Japanese aeronautical engineering.
The first movement opens with a Larghetto maestoso introduction. The three-note motif (A flat - E flat - F) presented by trombone and strings in the opening is, as it were, the motto of the engine, which propels the Kamikaze Concerto forward. The motto is followed by the solo piano, sometimes slow and sometimes fast, until a scherzo-like marching motif, which is closely related to the motto, in terms of intervals, on trumpet and trombone joins it. The interwoven texture of the motto and the marching motif starts the engine and the plane takes off into the Allegro assai main part of the movement, written in free sonata form, where trumpet and trombone introduce another scherzo-like marching motif in 6/8. This reaches a scale-like descending figure on the horn (E flat - A flat), suggesting clouds or mist descending from on high. Over these two motifs forming the first theme the piano starts a vigorous perpetuum mobile. Now the plane is in the air and a brilliant ascending figure from the soloist propels it through clouds, until a high-spirited, bouncing motif is played by the whole orchestra and the plane is flying high in the sky. This 'flying motif' is the equivalent of the second theme, including the same pattern (E flat - B flat - C) as the motto of the engine. In the development all the materials are treated elaborately. The piano makes acrobatic use of these motifs, with trills, tremolos, glissandos and hints of Prokofiev, and the plane continues its powerful flight. The recapitulation is first introduced by the second theme, after a flowing cadenza by the piano, and is followed by the first theme. Then, with the shrill sound of the piccolo, the plane flies far off and passes out of sight.
The second movement, Andante cantabile, is in tripartite form. It is music of a night flight or nocturnal jazz. In the first section, the blues-like mellifluous introduction leads to a nostalgic theme from the piano. The middle section is a brisk dance, punctuated by syncopation and staccato, and is filled with jazzy feelings. In the final section, the solo part of the opening is decorated with many arpeggios. The motifs in this movement are all related to the 'blue notes' and the pentatonic scales of Japanese folk-music.
The third movement, Allegro moderato - Allegro vivace, consists of an introduction, rondo and coda. The three-note motto, which ruled over the first movement, is also actively used in this movement from the beginning of the introduction. It first appears in the third bar at the trumpet's sforzando, and a new march-like motif is presented by horn, then oboe and clarinet. The motto and the motif, which are to be interrelated later on, form the framework of the movement. After the introduction comes the rondo. The first section is a jazz toccata led by the piano. It is joined by the march-like motif, which gradually agitates the music. The second section in B flat minor, mainly played by the wind, is a scherzando, but is not so vivid. The third section, led by cheerful sounds evoking the atmosphere of music-halls and cabarets in Europe, tells us that Kamikaze is approaching Paris and London. The final entry of the main theme grows in excitement, ending like a gust of wind with the Vivacissamente coda.