Poetry and Music: An Artistic Interaction in Song and Improvisation. Songs in German, Japanese, and Latin, and Polyaesthetic Scenes with Japanese Poems.

A Performance by Teachers and Students of Tokyo Gakugei University in the Gunild Keetman Hall / Orff Institute on March 25, 2025

Article by Barbara Dobretsberger

Edited by Bethany Elsworth

Musical encounters between different cultures are inspiring and can create a special dynamic. This was experienced by the audience in the near-full Gunild Keetman Hall at the Orff Institute in Salzburg on March 25, 2025. The concert was a collaboration between the Departments of Musicology and Elemental Music & Dance Pedagogy at the Orff Institute of the Mozarteum University and the Center for Applied Arts and Athletics Education from Tokyo Gakugei University. In this musical event, the recently established research cooperation between the Tokyo Gakugei University, one of the leading pedagogical universities in Japan, and the Mozarteum University was celebrated.

As Carl Orff's legacy emphasises, music and language are inextricably linked in every culture. Orff's ideals are also upheld and promoted by Prof. Dr. Masayuki Nakaji. He is chairman of the Orff Schulwerk Society Japan and musical supervisor of the Japanese student group that performed at this concert. True to the motto Poetry and Music, the Japanese guests were greeted musically by students from the Orff Institute with two pieces by Wilhelm Keller. These were conducted by Dr. Yvonne Hartinger. The following songs were in German, Japanese, and Latin. They were performed by the renowned baritone Prof. Dr. Hidekazu Ishizaki and Prof. Dr. Masayuki Nakaji on piano: Carl Loewe, Erich Korngold, Kozaburo Hirai, Haseo Sugiyama, and Carl Orff made a journey through German and Japanese song history.

The second half of the concert was a merging of ideas from the Orff Schulwerk and polyaesthetic education. Masayuki Nakaji had received inspiration from former professors of the Mozarteum - Hermann Regner and Wolfgang Roscher. These teachings matured over the years and resulted in the imaginative Polyaesthetic Scenes with Poems by Shuntaro Tanikawa. These were presented by students and graduates of the Tokyo Gakugei University under the direction and support of Masayuki Nakaji and Hidekazu Ishizaki. The audience was invited on a voyage into a dreamlike world of Japanese texts, images, and sounds. Tanikawa's texts form the basis of the polyaesthetic scenes. Tanikawa is one of the most important poets of Japanese modernism. In the collection ことばあそびうた Wordplay Songs (1973), Tanikawa explored ideas that coincided with Orff's aesthetics of using poems that have a fusion of words, sounds, and movements. Consequently, ideas from the Orff Schulwerk also came into play in the musical and visual staging. The Japanese words were combined with motion and a wide range of musical forms, onomatopoeia, sound painting, improvisation, imitation, pentatonics, and a rich array of percussion instruments. The audience were invited to participate in a body percussion piece, Japanese drum language.

Another collection of Tanikawa's poems entitled クレーの絵本 Picture Book by Paul Klee (1975) highlights that as a poet, he was a polyaesthete, inspired by music and images. The screened pictures by Paul Klee, the texts from three selected poems (in Japanese and translated by Eduard Klopfenstein) and the music (various modes, pentatonics, atonality, Japanese and Western instruments) merged to create a polyaesthetic scene that stimulated several senses. The Japanese guests and the audience were rewarded with an animated and inspirational atmosphere in the Gunild Keetman Hall.  It was wonderful to witness a bold initiative of the IOSFS and Tokyo Gakugei University.