MISHIMA

Eroticism, Beauty and Longing for Death

Maki Namekawa plays Philip Glass’ MISHIMA

On September 7th, 2018, Maki Namekawa premieres the piano version of Philip Glass’ soundtrack to Paul Schrader’s film MISHIMA – A Life in Four Chapters.

CD Release: September 7, 2018
MISHIMA – Maki Namekawa plays Philip Glass [OMM0128]
Arranged by Michael Riesman
Label: Orange Mountain Music
Booklet in English and Japanese

Premiere: September 10, 2018
ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 2018 – MUSIC MONDAY
in a staging/visualization by Andreas H. Bitesnich

Music Video: MISHIMA | Closing

© LAFFERENTZ Publishing

The 1985 film by Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, American Gigolo), produced by Francis Ford Coppola, employs a highly stylized aesthetic to portray the life of the Japanese poet and three-time Nobel Prize nominee Yukio MISHIMA.

In 2018, Maki Namekawa is recording the piano version of the entire film score for MISHIMA – A Life in Four Chapters (Glass’ first Hollywood score), for the first time since the original soundtrack was recorded in 1985.

Namekawa’s performance will feature her crystal-clear technique, which corresponds perfectly to Glass’ music. His musical character study of Mishima is consistent with his other “portrait operas” (Kepler, Einstein on the Beach).

Yukio MISHIMA’s meandering sexuality, his unusual intellect, his uncompromising artistic and political energy, and his erotic fascination with violent death set off a chain of events on November 25th, 1970 that led to a high-ranking General in the Japanese Self-Defense Forces being taken hostage by MISHIMA’s private army and then to MISHIMA’s death by harakiri.

Due to the decidedly negative reaction of MISHIMA’s family to the Schrader/Glass film, the film studio distanced itself and the film was not released in Japan.

MISHIMA himself said he would only be understood in Japan after 50 or 100 years – even today, the honor paid to his art coexists with perplexity at his actions on the day of his death.

Philip Glass decided in 2014 that Maki Namekawa should be the first pianist to record his Complete Piano Etudes. The double CD was released in November 2014 and reached number 1 on the iTunes Classical Charts.

Making the first recording of MISHIMA, as a Japanese pianist and with a piano arrangement crafted especially for her by Glass’ longtime musical director Michael Riesman, is a new high point in the collaboration between Namekawa and Glass.

Credit : MISHIMA, Philip Glass ( arr. for Maki Namekawa by Michael Riesman )