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Shibata, Minao 1916 - 1996

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  • Author: Nakatsuji, Maho

  • Last updated:April 20, 2018
  • Note: This article is automatically translated from the original Japanese text. The author of the original work did not supervise this translation.

    Minoru Shibata: A Biography

    Minoru Shibata was a composer who posed significant questions to the modern and contemporary Japanese music scene, and he was also active in the fields of music criticism and musicology. He was one of the chief supervisors for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Kodansha, 1993–95).

    Early Life and Musical Education

    Born on September 29, 1916 (Taisho 5), in Tokyo, Shibata's father, Yuji, was a chemist, and his grandfather, Shokei, was a key figure in the early establishment of the Japanese Pharmacopoeia, which sets standards for pharmaceuticals. Minoru Shibata received his first piano lessons from his mother, a student of Kosuke Komatsu, and developed an affinity for music under the influence of his cousin, Yasumoto Tokunaga (known as a Hungarian scholar), who was a music enthusiast. He studied piano with Sadamaro Iwai and James Dunn, cello with Fumio Suzuki, and harmony, counterpoint, and composition theory with Midori Hosokawa and Saburo Moroi.

    Academic Pursuits and Early Compositions

    In 1936 (Showa 11), he enrolled in the Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Tokyo Imperial University. At the university, he played cello in the orchestra and was also a member of the Seijo Choir. For two years from 1939, he worked at the Tokyo Science Museum (now the National Museum of Nature and Science). In 1941, he re-enrolled at Tokyo Imperial University, majoring in aesthetics in the Department of Aesthetics and Art History, Faculty of Letters. From 1943, he worked for approximately one year at Riken Scientific Film Company, and from 1944, he worked for the Japan Music Culture Association. Shibata's earliest works were composed in the early 1940s, including children's songs such as Yoru no Oinori (Night Prayer) and Otoko no Ko to Onna no Ko (Boy and Girl), art songs like Fujiryū (Dragon of Fuji) and Tsubame no Uta (Swallow's Song), and the song cycle Umi Shishō (Four Chapters of the Sea). Among his instrumental works, he completed String Quartet No. 1, Variations for Piano, and Piano Sonata.

    Post-War Activities and Influence on Japanese Music

    In 1946, he formed the

    1940年代後半には、柴田の代表作品の一つに数えられる《優しき歌》が完成した。他に、 弦楽四重奏曲や合唱曲も作曲している。

    1950年前後からは、P . ヒンデミットやR. レイボヴィッツの著書を手がかりとして、入野義朗とともに12音技法の研究を深めていく。 1957年に吉田秀和らと「20世紀音楽研究所」 を創設。前衛音楽の旗手としての一面を呈していく。柴田が12音技法を用いて作曲した代表的な作品に《朝の歌》(1952年)、《北園克衛による3つの詩》(1954~58年)、《シンフォニア》(1960年)があり、偶然性、不確定性を取り入れた作品には《夜に詠める歌》(1963年)、《み仏の春》(1966年)、《ピアノのためのインプロヴィゼーション第2》(1968年)などがある。

    1950~60年代には、教育活動も本格化した。 1952年から桐朋女子高校で学科主任を務め、 同年にお茶の水女子大学教育学部音楽科の講師となる。1959年から10年間は、東京藝術大学音楽学部楽理科でも教壇に立った。

    1969年に教職を辞し、以後は創作活動に重心を置きつつ、レコードや演奏会の批評、古典音楽の研究、日本の民謡採集などへ取り組んで ゆく。1973年に初演された《コンソート・オブ・ オーケストラ》で尾高賞を受賞。ここから柴田の作曲は、「西洋音楽演習」あるいは「西洋作曲様式実習」から、日本の民俗芸能や伝統音楽 をとりこんだ多様式の音楽へと変化してゆく。

    1973年に代表作品の一つとなる《追分節考》 を発表し、2年後には昭和期の音楽界と自身の 創作変遷を重ねた《ゆく河の流れは絶えずして》 が初演される。1975~80年にかけて、《萬歳流し》、《北越戯譜》、《念仏踊》、《修二会讃》、《宇宙について》、《布瑠部由良由良》などが作曲された。1973年以後に発表された日本の民俗芸能、社寺芸能を素材とする一連のシアター・ピースは、音楽の概念そのものへの再考を迫る革新的な作品と言うことができる。柴田は、シアター・ピース作品の上演により、1982年にサ ントリー音楽賞を受賞。同年には紫綬褒章も受けている。

    1984年から6年間、放送大学の教授を務めた。柴田による講義「音楽史と音楽論」は、従来の西洋音楽を中心に据えた音楽史記述を脱し、西洋音楽と東洋・日本の音楽を並列的に提示した点で画期的であった。1992年には文化功労者として表彰され、1996年、叙正四位、 叙勲二等授瑞宝章を受ける。同年2月2日に逝去した。

    柴田南雄が創作活動に専心していた頃、前衛 の「時代」が終わり、ポスト・モダンと呼ばれ る「時代」へと移行した。慧眼をもって、それぞれの時代や様式を総合的に再構成していった柴田。「引用」や「間テクスト性」といった手法に接触しながら、「作曲」そのものを再検討させる創作を試行した。

    Author: Nakatsuji, Maho
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    Author : Sudoh, Eiko

    Last Updated: April 1, 2007
    [Open]
    Note: This article is automatically translated from the original Japanese text. The author of the original work did not supervise this translation.

    Born in Tokyo. After graduating from the Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Tokyo Imperial University, he enrolled in the Department of Art History, Faculty of Letters at the same university. During this period, he studied composition under Saburo Moroi. After graduation, in 1946, he formed "Shinseikai" with Yoshiro Irino and others. From 1948, he started "Children's Music Class" (predecessor of Toho Gakuen School of Music) with Motonari Iguchi and others, and taught there. Meanwhile, he serialized essays on contemporary music, including "Bartók Ron" (On Bartók), in the journal Ongaku Geijutsu. From 1953, he began research on twelve-tone technique with Yoshiro Irino, and in 1957, he founded the "20th Century Music Research Institute." He endeavored to introduce European avant-garde music. After teaching for ten years from 1959 in the Department of Musicology at Tokyo University of the Arts, he began collecting Japanese folk songs himself from 1969 onwards. His compositional style also shifted from a "Western music exercise" approach to a "polystylistic" one, incorporating Japanese folk performing arts. His representative works include Oiwake-bushi Kō (1973) and a series of theater pieces (choral dramas). He passed away in 1996. He was recognized as a Person of Cultural Merit.

    Writer: Sudoh, Eiko

    Author : Nakatsuji, Maho

    Last Updated: April 20, 2018
    [Open]
    Note: This article is automatically translated from the original Japanese text. The author of the original work did not supervise this translation.

    As a composer, Minao Shibata presented very important problems on the Japanese music scene, and he was moreover an active figure in the fields of music criticism and musicology. He was also known as a total supervisor of the Japanese edition of the New Grove Dictionary.

    Shibata was born in Tokyo on September 29 in 1916. His father was a chemist and his grandfather supported the beginning of the Japanese Pharmacopeia, which provided the standards of pharmaceutical products. Minao Shibata learned to play the piano from his mother, a pupil of Kōsuke Komatsu, and he was close to music under the influence of his cousin, Yasumoto Tokunaga, who loved music and who today is known as a linguist of Hungarian. Shibata furthermore studied the piano under Sadamaro Iwai and James Dun, the cello under Fumio Suzuki, and harmony, counterpoint, and methods of composition under Midori Hosokawa and Saburō Moroi.

    In 1936, Shibata was admitted to the Botany Department of Science Faculty in the Tokyo Teikoku Daigaku (Tokyo Imperial University). At university, he participated in the university orchestra as a cellist, and was active as a member of the Seijō choir. For two years from 1939, he worked in Tokyo Kagaku Hakubutsukan (Tokyo Science Museum, now National Science Museum), but he re-entered Tokyo Teikoku Daigaku and majored in aesthetics at the Department of Aesthetics and Art History of the Faculty of Literature. He worked at the Riken Physical and Chemical Research Science Film Institute for a year from 1943 to 1944. From 1944, Shibata worked in the Japanese Music Culture Society.

    The earliest works of Shibata was composed in the first half of 1940s where he completed the following pieces: nursery rhymes “Yoru no Oinori (Pray in the Night)”, “Otokonoko to Onnanoko (Boys and Girls)”, songs “Fujiryū”, “Tsubame no Uta (Song of the Swallow)”, song collection “Umi Yon-shō (4 Pieces of the Ocean)”, instrumental music “String Quartet No. 1”, “Variation for Piano” and “Piano Sonata”.

    In 1946, he established ‘Shinsei-kai’ with Yoshirō Irino, Kunio Toda and Sadao Bekku, and this group provided a place for presenting his works until 1950. From the same year and the following seven years, Shibata arranged many songs for choir as a part-time worker at Tokyo Ongakushoin. In 1947, Shibata explained about “Pelléas and Mélisande” composed by C. Debussy on the NHK radio program ‘Meikyoku Kanshō no Jikan (Time for Appreciation of Great Music)’. After this first radio broadcasting, Shibata became in charge of the second broadcasting of the NHK program ‘Ongaku Nyūmon (Introduction of Music)’ and he had a profound influence on the Japanese music world in those days. Shibata co-founded the ‘Music Class for Children’, which is the predecessor of the current Department of Music at Tōhō Gakuen Daigaku, with Motonari Iguchi and Hideo Saitō in 1948. Shibata also began to write his ‘Treatise on Bartók’ which was published as a series of articles in the magazine ‘Ongaku Geijutsu’.

    In the latter half of 1940, Shibata composed “Yasashiki Uta (La bonne chanson)”, which counts as one of his most important pieces, and he completed a string quartet and a choral work during the same period.

    Shibata deepened his study of the twelve-tone technique with Yoshirō Irino around 1950, using the writings of composers such as R. Leibowiz and P. Hindemith. Shibata established ‘The Institute for 20th-Century Music’ with Hidekazu Yoshida and a number of musicians in 1957 and he started being active as a standard-bearer of avant-garde music. The representative works composed by Shibata using twelve-tone technique include “Asa no Uta (Morning Song)” (1952), “Kitazono Katsue ni yoru Mittsu no Shi (3 Poems by Katsue Kitazono)” (1954-58), and “Symphonia” (1960). “Yoru ni yomeru Uta (Song sung in the night)” (1963), “Mihotoke no Haru (Spring of the Buddha)” (1966), and “Improvisation for Piano No. 2” (1968) were composed by adopting aleatoric techniques and processes of indeterminacy.

    Shibata’s educational activity began in earnest around 1950. He acted as a chairman of Tōhō Girls’ High School from 1952 and became a lecturer at the Music Faculty of the Department of Education at Ochanomizu Joshi Daigaku (Ochanomizu Woman’s University). For ten years from 1959, Shibata also taught at the Department of Musicology at the Faculty of Music in Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku (Tokyo University of the Arts).

    In 1969, he resigned his teaching position and focused thereafter on composing and music criticism of records and concerts as well as research on classical music and Japanese folk songs. Shibata won the Otaka Award with the piece “Consort of Orchestra”. From this time onwards, the compositional works of Shibata changed from a ‘Practice of Western music’ or ‘Training of Western compositional style’ to a more poly-stylistic music integrating Japanese folk and traditional music.

    Oiwakebushi-kō (Reflections on ‘Oiwakebushi’)”, which is one of the most famous pieces of Shibata, was played in 1973 and two years later “Yuku Kawa no Nagare ha taezushite (The Flowing River Never Stops)” was performed, putting the Japanese music world of the Showa era upon his transition of compositional style. From 1975 to 1980, “Manzai Nagashi (Strolling Comedian)”, “Hokuetsu Gifu (Play Songs of Hokuetsu District)”, “Nenbutsu Odori (Buddhist Dance)”, “Shunie-san (Tribute to Shunie)”, “Uchū ni tsuite (About the Space)”, and “Furubeyurayura” were composed. A series of theater pieces presented after 1973 made use of material from Japanese folk entertainments and the musical performances of shrines and temples. These works can be considered progressive pieces because they made us reconsider the concept called music itself. Shibata received the Suntory Music Award in 1982 for the performance of four theater pieces. He received the Medal with Purple Ribbon the same year.

    For six years from 1984, Shibata worked as a professor at Hōsō Daigaku (The Open University of Japan). His lecture series ‘The History and Theory of Music’ was radical in the sense that it disregarded the, at that time, conventional view of music history which placed Western music at the center and instead juxtaposed Western music with East Asian and Japanese music. Shibata was commended as a Person of Cultural Merits in 1992 and promoted in 1996 to Senior Fourth Class and granted the Second-rank Order of the Sacred Treasure. However, Shibata passed away on February 2 in the same year.

    When Shibata devoted himself to his creative practice, the avant-garde ‘era’ came to an end and changed to the ‘era’ of the post-modern. With his keen insights, Shibata reconstructed each era and their musical styles comprehensively. His works, applying techniques of ‘quotation’ and ‘intertextuality’, allow us to reflect upon the act itself called the ‘composition’.

    Writer: Nakatsuji, Maho

    Works(8)

    Piano Solo

    sonata (1)

    Piano Sonata Op.2

    Composed in: 1943 

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    pieces (1)

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    variation (1)

    Variations for piano Op.1

    Composed in: 1941 

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    canon (1)

    Three Canons for piano Op.33

    Composed in: 1969 

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    character pieces (2)

    Improvisation I No. 20

    Composed in: 1957 

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    Improvisation II No. 31

    Composed in: 1968 

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    Piano Ensemble

    character pieces (1)

    GENERATION No.68

    Composed in: 1981 

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    Chamber Music

    suite (1)

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