United States ‘Hisaishi Conducts Hisaishi’: Antoine Tamestit (viola), Cleveland Orchestra / Joe Hisaishi (conductor, piano). Mandel Concert Hall, Severance Music Center, Cleveland, 4.9.2025. (MSJ)
Joe Hisaishi – Symphony No.3, ‘Metaphysica’; Viola Saga; The Boy and the Heron Suite
Known as ‘the Japanese John Williams’, Joe Hisaishi has lately made progress at solidifying his reputation for writing concert music as well as the film music for which he is famous, judging by the predominantly young crowd in attendance (some of whom dressed in costumes related to the anime films). This special concert with the Cleveland Orchestra showcased the multiple fronts of the composer’s activity, including conducting and leading from the keyboard. For this listener, unfamiliar with Hisaishi, it was an opportunity to meet a composer with no preconceptions.
Well, almost none. The program stated that while Hisaishi had Mahler in mind when selecting the large orchestral forces for his Symphony No.3, he contrasted Mahler’s programmatic approach with his own symphony, which was ‘completely structured around the movement of sound itself’. That statement, though, is undercut by the programmatic/philosophical titles of the movements and the work itself, ‘Metaphysica’.
The first movement, ‘existence’, only made sense to me in terms of the title. My first impression of the music was a little dismaying: it consists of multiple undifferentiated layers of frenetic post-minimalist activity that surpasses the near ‘maximalism’ of recent works by John Adams. From the podium, Hisaishi made little attempt, if any, to shape this deluge of bright sound, merely beating time and letting things fall where they may. But in the context of the title, it made sense to me: it was like listening to an aural equivalent of a bewilderingly busy social media feed, which is a pretty fair assessment of our current existence.
Indeed, the second movement was immediately shaped more expressively from the podium, registering with emotional yearning and much clearer focus. An aggressive, contrasting idea emerged in the second half of the movement but yielded at the end to the questioning strings. With or without the title of the movement, ‘where are we going?’, this was moving music.
The finale returned to the manic bustle of the first movement, but with more shape due to a returning musical gesture that Hisaishi says is derived from Sudoku. (As an aside, it seems that puzzles very much intrigue him: ’Joe Hisaishi’ is itself a stage name derived from a Kanji transliteration of the name of the composer’s idol, Quincy Jones. Hisaishi’s birth name is Mamoru Fujisawa.) The movement combined post-minimalist patterns with pop elements, including an almost continuous ‘rhythm track’ from the percussion section. I am not sure that I grasped a point of arrival for this 35-minute work on first listening, but there is no denying Hisaishi’s comprehensive skill. It is a work I would like to hear more than once to grasp everything that is going on. I am not sure how rewarding the piece is for the orchestra which is kept extremely busy, whether or not all those notes can be absorbed by the listener.
I had no hesitations whatsoever about Viola Saga, a masterful concerto featuring the accomplished Antoine Tamestit as soloist. Tamestit was last heard here in Jörg Widmann’s riveting Viola Concerto (review here) and seemed equally committed to Hisaishi’s much more rhapsodic piece. Starting with an introduction that featured the viola alone, the piece is built from moody arpeggios in the viola part. While that might sound simplistic at first glance, Hisaishi used these patterns as building blocks that unlocked an evocative soundscape, both urgent and haunting. Plus, the patterns are never as simple as they might first appear: one of Hisaishi’s characteristic gestures is the addition of a small extra beat during some of the repetitions, throwing the music elusively off center. Parts of the piece danced with a jazz-influenced catchiness, but the work’s darkly hypnotic drive never ceased, even in the viola’s cadenza. The piece was marvelous and brought forth a huge ovation. Tamestit offered the prelude from Bach’s First Cello Suite as an encore, first saluting Hisaishi as ‘the modern-day Bach of Japan’.
Last came the US premiere of a suite that Hisaishi arranged from his score to the film The Boy and the Heron, featuring Hisaishi leading from the keyboard. This was a good test for me, not having seen the film. I can say without question that I found the music enchanting. As film music requires, the layers and textures were kept simple, but it was also evocative music on its own terms. One can make up one’s own imaginary movie with such music, which kept enough harmonic grit to effectively stand alone as a concert piece. There was humor, too, in a movement that used a toy that made birdcalls. Hisaishi ingeniously arranged the piece so that he led off many of the sections from the piano, then had a piano within the orchestra take over some of the lines while he conducted the orchestral part. When textures thinned, he resumed the piano part. The music was charming and was played with great poise by the Cleveland Orchestra. For the encore – which sent a ripple of excitement through the audience – Hisaishi led the popular waltz, ‘Merry-Go-Round of Life’, from his score to the film Howl’s Moving Castle.
So, for the perennial question, does film music belong in the concert hall? I cite Duke Ellington: ‘If it sounds good, it is good’. And Joe Hisaishi’s music sounds good, whatever the genre.
Mark Sebastian Jordan
Featured Image: Antoine Tamestit solos in Joe Hisaishi’s Viola Saga with the composer conducting The Cleveland Orchestra © Julian Dubé/TCO