Item Number: EC.7845
Text: Bansui Doi.
Arranged for the Stanford Chamber Chorale's 2011 concert tour to Japan, this setting is dedicated to the ensemble and its director, Dr. Stephen M. Sano. Written in 1901 by Tokyo-born composer and pianist Rentaro Taki, and inspired by the ruins of Oka Castle in Oita Prefecture, Kojo no tsuki ("Moon over the ruined castle") is one of the most widely-known and well-loved songs in Japan. The lyrics were provided by Bansui Doi (1871-1952), a Sendai-born poet and translator, and the song was subsequently published in a songbook for junior high school students. Taki died at the untimely young age of twenty-three.
Taki's famous melody, employing the traditional Japanese nakazora scale, is underlaid here with contemporary harmonization, coloring the original with expressive dissonances and polyphonic texture. This hauntingly beautiful arrangement is sung entirely in Japanese using a transliteration underlay. The edition includes a printed English adaptation by Minako Sano and an IPA transliteration.
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