山田耕筰
山田耕筰
Genres: instrumental, japanese, contemporary classical, Classical, composer
橋本國彦
About 山田耕筰
Kosaku Yamada (山田耕筰, Yamada Kōsaku, June 9, 1886 - December 29, 1965) was a Japanese composer and conductor. In many Western reference books his name is given as Kósçak Yamada. During his music study in the Imperial German capital of Berlin from 1910-13 he hated the moment when people laughed at him because his "normal" transliteration of his first name "Kosaku" sounded like the Italian "cosa" meaning "what" or "thing" and the German "Kuh" meaning "cow"; which resulted in his choosing a somewhat fanciful transliteration of Kósçak Yamada ever since. Yamada was born and died in Tokyo. After studying at the Tokyo Music School (東京音楽学校), he left Japan for Germany where he enrolled in the Berlin Hochschule and learnt composition, before going to the USA for two years. Yamada left about 1600 pieces of music. Especially songs (Lieder) amount to 700 pieces of music. They were performed and recorded by many singers which include Kathleen Battle, Ernst Haefliger and Yoshikazu Mera. His opera "Kurofune" (黒船, The Black Ships) is regarded as one of the famous Japanese operas. As a conductor, Yamada made an effort to introduce many orchestral works to Japan. He was the first performer in Japan of Debussy's "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune", Dvořák's "Symphony No. 9", Gershwin's "An American in Paris", Mosolov's "Iron Foundry", Sibelius' "Finlandia", Shostakovich's "Symphony No. 1", Johann Strauss II's "An der schönen blauen Donau", and Wagner's "Siegfried Idyll".
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