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Begun a few weeks ago during the composer's lifetime, this portrait concludes with his death at the age of 71 on March 28. Rather than a classic hagiographic obituary, here is a musical evocation in the form of a tribute, an enlightenment (and a pear, too).
We understand that we've just lost an iconic musician when all our social networks, newspapers and friends (musicians or producers) interrupt their communication habits to share a video, a personal anecdote or a favorite album of the departed. We rush to our (computer) keyboards to express our sadness. And what better way for an artist than to publish his or her own musical exploits in the music of the recently deceased, or jackpot a photo in his or her company to convince himself or herself of "I exist!" or to clarify: "I knew him before you did!" Once this shamelessness has passed, the daily flow returns and new music replaces the old. It's time for musical introspection.
It may be some time before Ryuichi Sakamoto 's importance in the music world is fully appreciated. Famous the world over, his fame nevertheless lagged behind some of his legendary music. He never fully entered the star system that was opening its arms to him. His open ears to all kinds of music led him to collaborate with a multitude of musicians from different worlds(Robert Wyatt, David Toop, Christian Fennesz, Alva Noto, David Sylvian etc.).
But who really was this elegant Japanese musician whose art balanced between the avant-garde and pop music, skilfully bridging the gap between ambient sentimental minimalism and ever-renewed musical exigency?
A pioneer
To each his own, Sakamoto. There are those who love only his film scores (in their original versions, of course), others who prefer his synth-pop experiments with his Yellow Magic Orchestra ensemble , and others who swear by his avant-garde, ambient-tinged electronic music. But all are united in admiring his talent as an outstanding melodist, influenced, we read (almost all the time - journalists copy each other) by Debussy. The impact of Debussy's music in Japan is unimaginable, and still endures (consider Toru Takemitsu or Isao Tomita). Debussy's music is almost sacred in this country fascinated by French music (an island is named Cortoshima in honor of Alfred Cortot). It's no secret that non-European music and Japanese prints have captivated Debussy (as well as Ravel and Satie). However, it's easy for the media to claim that Ryuichi Sakamoto is an heir to Claude Debussy by virtue of his origin: an interest in gamelan, bells, the pentatonic mode and the piano is not enough to be an heir to Debussy - Sakamoto himself denied this. Listening to his latest album is proof of this. To see Sakamoto as a mere heir to Debussy is reductive, even false: he is first and foremost an original pioneer and innovator in his own time - that's what they have in common.
Sakamoto was one of the first Japanese masters of Moog, Buchla and ARP synthesizers: it was with his 1978 album Thousand Knives, composed on synthesizers, that he first came to the attention of musicians. References to the French composer are few and far between in his abundant discography - with the exception of this successful version, sampled and looped ad libitum of Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune.
Absolutely applied music
In Giuseppe Tornatore's 2021 film Ennio , which follows the life of Italian composer Ennio Morricone, a striking antiphon by the musician appeals to us throughout the film: All his life, Morricone lived with a sense of shame towards his master Goffredo Petrassi - champion of Italian avant-garde music - for he had taken the easy way out as a film composer and successful arranger of crowd-pleasing melodies. Morricone coined two expressions to describe his two facets: applied music (meaning the original soundtracks, known and admired by all) and absolute music "free of all constraints and totally dependent on the composer's will".
In Ryuichi Sakamoto's case, there never seems to have been any difference between his film music, his "absolute" music and his electronic rock-pop compositions. They are one and the same. His film scores are, of course, the best known to the general public, but they conceal works and albums that were much closer to his heart. In 2009, he made these terrible remarks: "I've just turned 57, and I understand that I haven't changed the world, that I haven't left a single piece that has changed the history of music, that I'm an inadequate person, that I have no talent. I hate to think that 'Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence' is the only song that's important and recognized worldwide". Let's pay tribute to him with another of his soundtracks from director Alejandro González Iñárritu's 2006 film Babel (originally on Smoochy, a 1997 rock album).
Piano mon ami
One constant in his abundant, hybrid musical universe: the acoustic piano. He began his musical studies with it (it is said that he could play the famous virtuoso Étude La Campanella by Paganini/Liszt at top speed) and ended his life by entrusting it with his last notes. All his life he was the interpreter of his own music, and only recently stopped touring the world, alone at the piano, belting out hits from his albums and film scores.
His fine playing, with its clear, lilting lines, is that of a pianist in love with his instrument. Unlike many of today's film music composers, Sakamoto was more than capable of playing the music he composed, preferring to interpret it himself.
As the years go by, he abandons electronics (without ever abandoning it completely) in favor of acoustics; the natural sound of the grand piano, but also of strings (sublime theme from The Revenant). The simplicity of his themes, their childlike purity, often links him to the minimalists, but when you listen to his music seriously, you hear harmonies and melodic impulses that have more in common with a Satie (or even a late-period Fauré), and the repetition characteristic of a Glass or Reich is relatively absent.
He is also an undisputed master of ambient music, which was propelled by Brian Eno but invented long before by Erik Satie with his Musique d'ameublement: music that may not be listened to attentively, that accompanies our daily lives without disrupting them, but which, when you put your ear to it, conceals a thousand and one riches. In 2017, this piano lover coordinated a tribute to Glenn Gould in Tokyo, featuring some of his most beautiful themes, including andata, one of his most beautiful piano pieces, reminiscent of Satie's stripped-down Désespoir agréable.
12: the will and the synthesis
In 2014, doctors diagnosed him with throat cancer. He retires for a while, taking the time to heal and fight his way back in 2015 with the music for Iñárritu's The Revenant - quite a symbol. Life resumed its course, and magnificent albums blossomed( notablyAsync in 2017), but unfortunately, in 2021, he announced that he was once again suffering from cancer, and since June 2022, he knew he was doomed, irretrievably.
His last album, 12 , released digitally in January 2023 and physically on March 31, three days after his death, is a musical testament that brings together an aesthetic synthesis of what makes Sakamoto "distinctive". These 12 pieces, composed alone on keyboard and computer between New York and Tokyo, are a diary of his battle with cancer and certainly one of his finest records. Soberly, he returns to his fundamentals: piano and electronics. But no procrastination here: "After returning "home" to my new temporary accommodation after a major operation, I found myself looking for my synthesizer. I had no intention of composing anything; I just wanted to be inundated with sounds. I'll probably continue to keep this kind of "diary."
Each track bears the name of the day on which it was created - somewhere between improvisation and composition. We find his famous cottony layers of sound, for which he alone has the secret, overhung by a few notes of acoustic piano, which play out an original and evocative melody. In ambient mode, the sixth piece (20220207) explicitly and insistently quotes Dies Irae, the apocalyptic liturgical medieval hymn so often used by composers to suggest death (Liszt, Mel Bonis, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, Pierre Henry, Louis Andriessen, Wendy Carlos etc.). The Sarabande (20220302), the eighth piece (the only one with a name), of course reminds us of Erik Satie and his Trois Sarabandes but also, in several obvious moments, Handel's famous Sarabande used in the fatal duel at the end of Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon - echoing his own duel with cancer. Several pieces also evoke the Catalan composer Federico Mompou, with his Paisajes (in 20211130) and his Música callada (in 20220123), where Mompou's theme is repeated and echoed throughout the piece.
How can we fail to see in this a terrible wink when we know that música callada literally means: music that falls silent. This quasi-posthumous album is punctuated throughout by Sakamoto's breathing, the sound of hammers and piano mechanics, punctuated and concluded by small Tibetan bells and dorjés - as if completing a religious ceremony or celebrating the beginning of a new life.
François Mardirossian
Our Ryuichi Sakamoto playlist :
Photos © Zakkubalan
Photos © Jeannette Montgomery Barron
Photos © Wing Shya
