Search - Naito :: Strings & Time

A Composer to Follow

marsyas | Chicago | 10/11/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Naito's music is somewhat in the orbit of the late Toru Takemitsu, Japan's superstar composer, with whom Naito was quite close. This is to say that the harmonic world will strike a Westerner as French until listening deeper and discovering a uniquely Japanese musical aesthetic which has assimilated some Western formal ideas, assimilating them into Japanese musical traditions.I find all of these pieces to be very strong. My favorite is Winter Shadow, for two guitars, with William Anderson and Oren Fader. In this work there are two movements. The first has rich harmonies and achieves a real sense of multidimensionality. The second movement is free structually, with spectacular bottle-neck slide playing, pizzicato, and rasqueado techniques."