Toshi Ichiyanagi

Piano Space

Toshi Ichiyanagi was born in Ashiya-Shi (Japan) in 1933; he studied with K. Hirao and T. Ikenouchi and lived in the USA from 1952-61, where John Cage and Aaron Copland influenced his work. He began by composing electronic and experimental music, later moving on to include piano pieces, chamber music and orchestral works as well as composing for traditional Japanese instruments. His piano cycle 'Cloud Atlas' (SJ 1059) has become well known: in it he describes the fascinating world of shapes among the clouds. The piano piece Piano Space was written in 2001 and lasts for nine minutes. The 'piano space' is felt in two different ways here: on the one hand, differing areas of sound (deep, middle, high) are worked into the formal structure of the composition, while on the other hand the recitations of a melody with a very free rhythmic structure create a space in which the individual notes stand in relation to one another with no overall metric framework, thus in a sense generating 'rhythmic spaces'.