[color=red]The Complete Soundtracks of
Akira Kurosawa[/color]




Composed by:

Tadashi Hattori
Fumio Hayasaka
Akira Ifukube
Masaru Satô
Toru Takemitsu
Shinichirô Ikebe
Seiichi Suzuki
Isaak Shvartz


[color=red]Album Info[/color]


Given its hefty price tag, this five-CD Japanese import is likely to appeal only to the most serious fans of Akira Kurosawa and Japanese movie music. Almost all of the labeling and all of the annotation is in Japanese, which may also limit its appeal. On the other hand, in the absence of any similar CD releases of any kind, this is a unique box, and much of its content is all that exists in the way of soundtrack discs by many of the composers represented. Each of Kurosawa's movies (except for the music-less Those Who Make Tomorrow) is represented, from 1943's Sanshiro Sugata through 1993's Madadayo. The composers whose work is featured, often lifted off of the film audio tracks (complete with dialogue) in the case of the earlier films, are Seichi Suzuki, Tadashi Hattori, Fumio Hayasaka, Akira Ifukube, Masaru Sato, Toru Takemitsu, Isaac Schwalz, and Shinichiro Ikebe.
The quality of the recording and source material on the earliest movies is relatively poor, but it has been cleaned up well, and the music -- including the portions with dialogue over some parts -- is well chosen.
Suzuki's main title music for Sanshiro Sugata, Kurosawa's first movie, starts off in a martial mode before shifting to a surprisingly lyrical passage. The same composer's music for The Most Beautiful, dating from April 1944, employs a female chorus to very poignant effect. They Who Step on the Tiger's Tail, released in May of 1946, marked the first of three Kurosawa movies scored by Tadashi Hattori, and its music boasts a male chorus working in what sounds like a distinctly medieval mode. Hattori's music for No Regrets for Our Youth, by contrast, is written in a distinctly early-19th-century European mode, for full orchestra with a rich, romantic theme for its title music. One Wonderful Sunday, released in June of 1947, is almost Mendelssohn-like in its rich melodies and scoring for full orchestra, as well as the delightful mood of its music.
Drunken Angel, released in April of 1948, was a decidedly darker movie in subject and employs a somber, menacing score by Fumio Hayasaka, who later became Kurosawa's composer of choice. Hayasaka's music employs full orchestra dominated by the brass and solo guitar, and wrenchingly poignant passages for the string section; it also takes full advantage of the contrasting timbral effects from each. For The Quiet Duel in 1949, Kurosawa employed the talents of Akira Ifukube, best known as the composer of most of the music for Toho Studios' Godzilla movies. Hayasaka wrote the music for Kurosawa's 1949 police thriller Stray Dog -- a growling, ominous piece of main-title scoring -- while his music for the director's 1950 feature Scandal is a wilder, free-flowing piece for flute. Hayasaka's main-title music for Rashomon is the first on this set that most listeners may recognize, with its distinctly brittle, medieval feel, and one passage that sounds like a medieval Japanese reinterpretation of Ravel's "Bolero." Unfortunately, it is necessarily presented with dialogue over it.
Hayasaka's most haunting music, however, as well as his most beautiful and lyrical, is the material that he wrote for Iriku, a poignantly expressive body of music that is offered here in seven uninterrupted minutes in astonishingly good sound. Hayasaka died prior to completing the score for Kurosawa's epic-length The Seven Samurai, which was finished by Masaru Sato, another staff composer at Toho Films. Sato was associated with Kurosawa for nine movies, including Throne of Blood, Yojimbo, and Sanjuro. His music accentuated the raw, imposing physicality and emotion of these films. Sato also proved effective as a composer of music for contemporary subject matter, and his music for the period epic/satire The Hidden Fortress also catches the subtly shifting moods of that film perfectly.
Toru Takemitsu's music for two Kurosawa movies, Dodes'Kaden and Ran, make for sharp contrasts, one enchantingly lyrical and almost western in nature, the other melding eerie orchestral passages to the sounds of Japanese flutes and other native instruments. The sound quality on all of the material from the early 1960s onward ranges from very good to excellent; even the early material, with its somewhat compressed and noisy film element sources, is worth hearing in isolation as music. As mentioned, the box comes with a booklet that is in Japanese, as is virtually all of the musical and composer information on the discs, which come in individual sleeves within the box.


[color=red]TrackList[/color]


[color=red]Disc 1[/color]
1. Sanshiro Sugata (01:51)
Seichi Suzuki
2. The Most Beautiful (01:28)
Seichi Suzuki
3. Sanshiro Sugata II (01:35)
Seichi Suzuki
4. They Who Step On The Tiger's Tail (03:05)
5. No Regrets For Our Youth (02:57)
Tadashi Hattori
6. One Wonderful Sunday (02:16)
Tadashi Hattori
7. Drunken Angel (04:07)
Fumio Hayasaka
8. The Quiet Duel (05:08)
Akira Ifikube
9. Stray Dog (01:19)
Fumio Hayasaka
10. Scandal (01:25)
Fumio Hayasaka
11. Rashomon (12:57)
Fumio Hayasaka
12. The Idiot (01:35)
Fumio Hayasaka
13. Ikiru (07:29)
Fumio Hayasaka

[color=red]Disc 2[/color]
1. Seven Samurai (21:29)
Fumio Hayasaka
2. Record Of A Living Being (03:06)
Fumio Hayasaka
3. The Throne Of Blood (12:25)
Masaru Sato
4. The Lower Depths (02:57)
Masaru Sato
5. The Hidden Fortress (11:14)
Masaru Sato
6. The Bad Sleep Well (12:09)
Masaru Sato

[color=red]Disc 3[/color]
1. Yojimbo (19:41)
Masaru Sato
2. Sanjuro (11:29)
Masaru Sato
3. High And Low (07:18)
Masaru Sato
4. Red Beard (12:50)
Masaru Sato

[color=red]Disc 4[/color]
1. Dodes'kaden (09:12)
Toru Takemitsu
2. Dersu Uzala (12:02)
Isaak Shvartz
3. Kagemusha (37:42)
Shinichiro Ikebe

[color=red]Disc 5[/color]
1. Ran (32:28)
Toru Takemitsu
2. Dream (24:38)
3. Rhapsody In August (01:45)

[color=#red]Total Duration:[/color] 04:39:37

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