Classic Music - Orchestral musics -

Toru sometimes enjoys Fireworkmusic and Watermusic composed by Handel, but Handel is special for him as a composer of concertos and chamber musics as same as Haydn. Anyway, the best performer of Handel's orchestral music and concertos is Collegium Aureum using original instruments. They give cheerfulness to him.

Toru also sometimes listens to Bach's Orchestral Suites, of course the performance of Karl Richter's Munchen Bach-Orchestra. Bach's almost all music are well tensionally performed by him.

He doesn't listen much to Mozart's Serenades, though K361(Gran Partita) is impressive with the memory of the film "Amadeus" and K320(Posthorn) is charming. He loves Divertimento for string orchestra, especially K136, K137, K138 and K334. No special performance exists he thinks, almost all performances are good because of the quality of the music itself.

Rossini's Overtures and 6 Sonatas for strings are also charming. A performance of Abbado/London Symphonic Orchestra(LSO) and a performance of I Solisti Italiani for each are vivid with beauty.

Sometimes he listen to Liszt's Symphonic poem Les Preludes or Wagner's Overture Tanheuzer or Smetana's Symphonic poem My Country, especially Moldau, to encourage himself. To the former 2 musics, German conductors/orchestra such as Furtwangler/BPO is good, to the latter music, of course, Check conductor/orchestra such as Neuman/Check Phil is best.

Vienna Waltz performed by VPO is one of his favorites, lovely musics. In his stay in Wien, when he was student, he couldn't have a chance to enjoy them, so that it is his dream to attend the new year concert held in Wien.

In Russian Orchestral Musics, he likes Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exibition performrd by Karajan/BPO, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker performed by Ancermet/Romande and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade performed by Ozawa/Boston. But, in recent days, he doesn't hear them much.

He doesn't hear R.Strauss's Symphonic Poems. He tried to listen his musics in past, but couldn't enjoy.(Only one exception is the beginning of Also sprach Zarathustra, because it calls him a scene of the film "2001 space voyage")

He likes North Europe's flavor, so that Grieg's Holberg suite, Peer Gynt and Sibelius's Der Schwan von Tuonela, Finlandia are his favorites. He has disks of Balvilori/Harle, Weldon/Philharmonia for Grieg's and Karajan/BPO for Sibelius's.

Recently, He likes Debussy's La Mer and Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and Ravel's Bolero and Pavane pour une infante Defunte. He started to hear such a French Musics after a piano concert held at Chigasaki City Hall in 1983, where the pianist(Takahiro Sonoda) performed Debussy's impressive Images. After the concert, he started to hear Debussy's piano musics first, Ravel's piano musics 2nd and their Orchestral Musics 3rd.

He knows that Bartok's Orchestral musics such as Concerto for orchestra, Dance suite and Music for strings, percussion and celesta are attractive, but doesn't know that Stravinsky's musics such as Der Feuervogel, Petrouchka and Le Sacre du Printemps. Stravinsky is his "Virgine Atlantic".

In addition, he sometimes enjoys Bizet's L'Arlesienne, Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No.1, Britten's Simple Symphony, Barber's Adagio and Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht for String Orchestra