Hikaru Hayashi Explained

Hikaru Hayashi
Birth Date:22 October 1931
Birth Place:Tokyo, Japan
Death Place:Tokyo, Japan
Othername:林 光
Occupation:Composer, pianist, conductor

was a Japanese composer, pianist and conductor.[1] Hayashi is considered to be one of the most renowned and accomplished Japanese composers of the postwar period.[2] In particular, Hayashi was noted for his choral suite Scenes from Hiroshima (1958–2001).

In exploring the possibilities of Japanese language opera, Hayashi composed more than 30 operas. He was artistic director and resident composer of the Opera Theatre Konnyakuza. His oeuvre also includes symphonic works, works for band, chamber music, choral works, songs and more than 100 film scores. Hayashi was also the author of more than 20 books including Nihon opera no yume (日本オペラの夢 The Dream of Japanese Opera).[3]

In 1998 Hayashi won the 30th Suntory Music Award.

Early life

Hikaru Hayashi was born in Tokyo on October 22, 1931. He was the cousin of renowned flautist Ririko Hayashi. Hayashi's father was a physician who had graduated from Keiō University Medical School, and had studied in Berlin before returning to Japan to take up a position as a professor at Nihon University. A musical prodigy, Hayashi began studying music under his father's friend, the famed composer Hisatada Otaka, at the age of 10, composing numerous full-length chamber music and orchestral works while still a child. Hayashi later entered Tokyo University of the Arts as a composition student but did not complete his studies.[1]

Career

In 1953, Hayashi co-founded the "Goat Society" (山羊の会, Yagi no Kai) with other young composers such as Michio Mamiya and Yuzō Toyama. The aim of the society was to develop a new form of Japanese classical music different from wartime ultranationalist music.[4] Over the course of the 1950s, the group increasingly became involved in left-wing politics. For example in 1958, when conservative prime minister Nobusuke Kishi attempted to pass a draconian Police Duties Bill to crack down on left-wing protesters, the Goat Society inserted a statement opposing the bill into the program of their fifth anniversary concert.[5]

From 1959 to 1960, Hayashi participated in the Anpo protests against revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty alongside other young composers, artists, and writers as part of the "Young Japan Society" (若い日本の会, Wakai Nihon no Kai).[6] Hayashi was deeply affected by the failure of the protests to stop the treaty, and penned several ballads about the movement, including "6/15," a song in honor of the memory of Tokyo University student Michiko Kanba, who had been killed during the protests.[7]

Immediately following the protests, Hayashi helped co-found the Seinen Geijutsu Gekijō ("Youth Art Theater"), which was one of the earliest theatre troupes in the Angura movement of radical, "underground" avant-garde theatre.[8]

Beginning in the late 1950s, Hayashi became increasingly known for his innovative film scores, especially as part of his long-running collaboration with Japanese filmmaker Kaneto Shindo, beginning with his scoring of Shindo's film Daigo Fukuryū Maru, ("Lucky Dragon No. 5," 1959), which was based on the Lucky Dragon No. 5 nuclear fallout incident of 1954. For example, Hayashi created "harrowing" scores for the Shindo-directed horror films Onibaba ("Demon Hag," 1964) and Kuroneko ("The Black Cat," 1968) by combining taiko drums with the sound of human screams.[9] Hayashi also collaborated with filmmaker Nagisa Ōshima, scoring Ōshima films such as Violence at Noon (1966), Band of Ninja (1967), and Death by Hanging (1968). Ultimately, Hayashi would go on to craft scores for more than 100 films.

In 1975, Hayashi was appointed artistic director and resident composer of the Opera Theatre Konnyakuza in Tokyo, a post he held until his death in 2012.

Later life and death

In September 2011, Hayashi collapsed in front of his home, hitting his head. He was rushed to the hospital in an unresponsive state, where he received treatment for several months. He died on January 5, 2012, at the age of 80.

Selected works

Opera
Orchestral
Concertante
Chamber music
Piano
Film scores

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: http://www.asahi.com/obituaries/update/0107/TKY201201060748.html. ja:作曲家の林光さん死去 多くの日本語創作オペラ生む. 2012-01-07. Asahi Shimbun. ja. 7 January 2012. 2012-01-08. https://web.archive.org/web/20120108225150/http://www.asahi.com/obituaries/update/0107/TKY201201060748.html. dead.
  2. Book: Kapur, Nick. Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Harvard University Press. 2018. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 978-0674984424. 298n7.
  3. http://homepage2.nifty.com/hayashi_hikaru/index.htm 林光の部屋
  4. Book: Galliano, Luciana . Yogaku: Japanese Music in the 20th Century . Scarecrow Press . 2003 . 978-0810843257 . 197.
  5. Book: Havens, Thomas R.H. . Radicals and Realists in the Japanese Nonverbal Arts: The Avant-garde Rejection of Modernism . Thomas Havens . University of Hawai'i Press . 2006 . 978-0824830113 . 129.
  6. Book: Kapur, Nick. Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Harvard University Press. 2018. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 978-0674984424. 297n1.
  7. Book: Kapur, Nick. Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Harvard University Press. 2018. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 978-0674984424. 179.
  8. Book: Kapur, Nick. Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Harvard University Press. 2018. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 978-0674984424. 207.
  9. Web site: Bhatia . Uday . Hearing the Fear . Mint . April 7, 2017 . June 11, 2021.

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