Jo Kondo, a composer who shaped his own musical world – On the occasion of Composium 2023

Below is the introduction to The Narrative of History of Western Music written by Jo Kondo.

The term “History” encompasses more than a mere log of past events or objects. It encompasses a narrative that interweaves various facts and what appeared to be facts. How to sort out numerous facts in the past, which to be picked up among those, or how to interpret even the set of the same facts and then in what angle they are interweaved make this “history as narrative” different.

Since this book belongs to the series intended for the younger generation, written with a “desu-masu” speaking tone, his remarks here have appeared as a deja vu or deja lu to me. Or all this was an illusion? I had already read his statement elsewhere that this composer-musicologist once writes about his process of compositional approach by listening carefully to one note, and then another.

I came across the following on the flyer for “Composium 2023 – With Jo Kondo” this time.

I start by selecting a note I feel good about and then consider which note should be the second while repeatedly listening to the one. After I’ve decided on a suitable second note, I move on to the third, then the fourth and fifth, which are strung together like one straight line...

Let’s compare the above remarks with previous ”history,” events, and objects. The music, Jo Kondo’s music=works, is, of course, distinguished from ”history.” Even so, there appears to be a similarity between Jo Kondo’s ideas in which points are not isolated but connected to form a line, and the concept of ”history,” at least to me.

When events and objects are said and written, they are language and abstraction. Even an inclusive expression of one word has many layers of reality constituted of human beings and things. So is the sound. Everybody simply refers to a sound. But what is a sound, or how does it appear? There is no pure sound in the natural environment. The tone from instruments has various overtones. Although a note “repeatedly heard” is connected with the “next” note in the flow of time, originally “one note” is not generated by not only one instrument. The audible, recognizable tone could be the only one but we might listen to “the single tone” by multiple instruments. While listening to it, the tone of even one note may vary. A “repeatedly heard” tone constitutes duration in its repetition, no matter how long or short it is.

The text quoted from the flyer is not the original version by Jo Kondo. It is a compactly edited version of what he has written or said, which is difficult to identify their sources. Even so, I recollect that I have come across similar content somewhere else, and because of the composer’s permission, it has become available to read on the flyer. And once again, I think this brief text simplifying Jo Kondo’s method of his own compositions manifests his basis, and these words also recommend that if the composition takes this procedure, listeners should take the same procedure when he listens to it.

There appears a note and then comes next, the second note. And another, the third one appears. The second note is led by the first, and then decided as “good,” and so does the third. It’s obvious. Naturally, ears hear sounding notes from one to another. However, unintentionally, ears fail to listen to the connections between each note. They fail to listen. We do not hear as the composer hears, or can not. (Neither the composer himself.) Furthermore, each note that has been “repeatedly listened to” by the composer when he composed, is embodied as a composition, disappears momentarily, is instantly replaced by another note, and again becomes another and then the next other note.

This is different from melodies given by revelation, harmonies inspired out of the blue, and suddenly having the whole perspective of the composition. Just remind my earlier quotes about the state of “history” and “narrative”. A narrator of “history-narrative” knows “events-matters” in advance, gives deep thought to how to connect, and manipulates them. The narrator would alter nuance, pace, and vocal intonation, or even stage the climax. The events-matters often serve the flow of the history-narrative and the effect on the audience or also disdain each eventness and matterness. Plainly speaking, the music=narrative recited (performed) in a certain duration has its gravity to physical perception. But the music of Jo Kondo is not composed in this way. In a sense, in a cool way or a primitive way, by laying a distance on the intention of the narrator, his music suggests “to listen to” or the work of music as an object to listen to. His music may betray this expression, “the pleasure of the sound,” and the nuance of it, which puts the priority on entertainment and is embraced in this archipelago since the modern era. (It is, however, nothing but pleasure in its alternative meaning.)

In the 1970s, Jo Kondo was here in this archipelago, as one of the youngest composers. He was known of the same generation as Sueko Nagayo and Somei Satoh, following Shigeaki Saegusa and Shin-ichiro Ikebe. Kondo was once vaguely grouped in minimalism or modal style. In this situation, he had aggressively released texts. He wrote the texts to give deep thought to his compositions. He told that he reconfirmed what he achieved in his composition through the texts, but the form employed to lay out his thought and aesthetics, or composition and its practice of his works gave us substantial impact, no matter how it was. My acquaintances around me even made photocopies of a series of his column on Episteme (Yasuo Kobayashi was a regular contributor to this magazine, who is the partner of the talk event at the Composium,) a discontinued magazine, to compile a private edition. I believe the opening sentence of the column that “We can envision inaudible sound but not find music composed by inaudible sounds” numbed us and was ardently supported by not less young. And I was one of those.

This series was published as Sen no Ongaku (music, appearing on the linear line) (first published by Asahi Publishing and currently by Artes Publishing) and Toru Takemitsu contributed a recommendation to the first edition (1979).

The music of Jo Kondo was drawn hot attention against its coolness at the Festival d’Automne à Paris last year. The unique aspect of his music lies in that no convenient circuits exist between the notion of music entity and the sound of its representation. We are to listen to layers of the transparent sound formed by the line bordered by nothingness.

The Composium will give the performance of 5 of his compositions including the world premiere of Birdphone Functions (1974) in public since its first broadcasting which he composed in his 20s, and 2 other world premiere compositions. We do not have so many chances to listen to his orchestral works. He wrote, however, in his profile “The first time I listened to live orchestra sounds when I was a high school student, I decided to be a composer. ” (from The Narrative of History of Western Music) The change and changelessness in his compositions after all these years, or “further” development may depend here on the listener’s expectation.

Because the performance is taking place at Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall: Takemitsu Memorial, we may paraphrase the composers’ ideas of titles and images. Here I quote Jo Kondo’s writing on Toru Takemitsu from its beginning.

To me, the nature of the sound is the same as weeds on abandoned lots, cumulonimbus clouds traversed by a sparrow soaring up from a branch against the blue sky, a lizard stuck to the concrete block wall in the afternoon of a cloudy sky, and pebbles on the sidewalk. They are just ordinary things around me. But in the case of Toru Takemitsu, it seems otherwise. Every time I listen to his music, that same feeling comes back to me.

The text (Music of Toru Takemitsu) was written in 1981, but ahead of 5 years, in 1976, in the course of the dialogue with Toru Takemitsu, he told as follows. Mentioning his recent composition Walk, he continues;

(...) I don’t think of attaining metaphysics through metaphors evoked by such poetic images as waves or trees. Rather I think of the daily life of a person. Well, daily life possibly carries a lot of different meanings. For instance, walk. Its rhythm, such movement would create. This is real and has no reference to any poetic images which waves would evoke. So such rhythms, the rhythm of music made from relationships with certain notes, and similarities with that rhythm of music made from relationships with certain notes, I think of such things, as the staged daily life in the meaning which the acting in the film might have.

The title of the work of music, the relationship between the title and the work composed by notes, even only these things tell us that our idea is far from that of the composer. That’s amazing. What I recollect from the texts of Jo Kondo is about John Cage and Toshi Ichiyanagi, who passed away a year ago. It is also about daily life, the daily practice of a person, and the sound-the music, but is another story.

Listening to his works requires quite different tension or focus than other composers’ works, in my opinion. I think the composer himself might be required likewise.

When listening to one of his compositions, I once told the composer about my emotional involvement. Kondo-san perplexedly replied with a minute ironic smile and told me not to involve emotion. OK, I understood he did not write to evoke that kind of reaction, and the music is not that kind. When did I realize this, although it was a little late?

But not only that, by listening to not a single work but multiple, there surfaces something up. The settings of the rhythm (or of this kind), the preference of tone color (preoccupation for the cowbell,) the sharpness / connection of each note, the acoustic sound reminding that of the electronic sound, and reciprocities of “listening – playing” among each part of the ensemble...

There should be multiple ways of listening to music, or the work of music. And there might be cases that you could never know how to set the way to listen to, nor to alter it. If you find the music or the work of music not of your interest, you will be curious if there is an alternative way of listening to make it interesting, regardless of whether it is in line with the intention of the composer or not. If it’s still not interesting, you would try (or you could) any possible other ways of listening. There may be possibilities for the side of a listener to tune himself in. Additionally, one can alter oneself through music.

To tell the truth, the choice of a theme song composed for a TV drama where a sweet melody by strings is perforated by the cowbell from time to time, or the works originally composed for different purposes from the concert programs would have been good for the fringe programs of the Composium.

LIVE INFORMATION
Composium 2023 – With Jo Kondo
Film and Talk
May 23 (Tue), 2023 at Tokyo Opera City Recital Hall, Hatsudai, Tokyo
Start: 19:00
A Shape of Time: The Composer Jo Kondo (2016, 100 min., Japanese subtitles)
Director:Viola Rusche / Hauke Harder
Starring: Yasuo Kobayashi (philosophy, professor emeritus of The University of Tokyo), Jo Kondo
https://www.operacity.jp/en/concert/calendar/detail.php?id=15707

The Music of Jo Kondo
May 25 (Thu), 2023 at Tokyo Opera City Recital Hall, Hatsudai, Tokyo
Start: 19:00

■Program
Jo Kondo: Pastoral for orchestra (1989)
Jo Kondo: Birdphone Functions for orchestra (1975)
Jo Kondo: Frontier for 3 solo clarinets and 5-part clarinet choir (1991)
Jo Kondo: Brace of Shakes for orchestra (2022) [world premiere]
Jo Kondo: Palimpsest for orchestra (2021) [world premiere]

Performers: Pierre-André Valade (Cond), Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Kunitachi College of Music Clarinet Ensemble
https://www.operacity.jp/en/concert/calendar/detail.php?id=15708

Toru Takemitsu Composition Award 2023: Final Concert
(Judge: Jo Kondo)
May 28 (Sun), 2023 at Tokyo Opera City Recital Hall, Hatsudai, Tokyo
Start: 15:00
Performers: Kosuke Tsunoda (Cond), Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra

■Program
[Finalists] (in order of entry)
Guillermo Cobo Garcia (Spain): Yabal-al-Tay for symphonic orchestra
Michael Taplin (UK): Selvedge for full orchestra
Koji Yamabe (Japan): Underscore for orchestra
Yuheng Chen (China): tracé / trait für Orchester
https://www.operacity.jp/en/concert/calendar/detail.php?id=15709

Composium 2023 Related Event
Jo Kondo – Chamber Music Concert
May 26 (Fri), 2023 at Tokyo Opera City Recital Hall, Hatsudai, Tokyo
Start: 19:00
https://www.operacity.jp/en/concert/calendar/detail.php?id=15741

Jo Kondo – Choral Music Concert
May 30 (Tue), 2023 at Tokyo Opera City Recital Hall, Hatsudai, Tokyo
Start: 19:00
https://www.operacity.jp/en/concert/calendar/detail.php?id=15742