dimanche 24 août 2008

Tomita - Back to the Earth - Live in New York (1988)




Isao Tomita (b. 1932) is one of the most important pioneers in the history of electronic music. He started using a Moog III Modular Synthesizer in the late '60s. Like Walter Carlos, with his famous Switched on Bach series, Tomita was interested in performing classical music scores with this new generation of musical instruments, providing the musician with an infinite range of sounds and climates. Snowflakes are dancing was his first record in 1974: Debussy was among the classical composers reinvented through synthesizers. Tomita then reinterpreted pieces by Mussorgsky, Stravinsky, Mahler and Holst, among others.

Back to the Earth is a live album recorded during a spectacular concert in New York City, on September 13, 1986, in and above the Hudson River and in the entire area of lower Manhattan, in commemoration of the centennial of the Statue of Liberty. Musicians from the United States, Soviet Union, China and Japan were brought together and performed with Tomita for a 100,000 audience.

Today, this live recording sounds as innovative and spectacular as in 1988: the sound quality, the mixing of symphonic orchestra, human choirs, Japanese and Chinese instruments is impressive. The expressiveness and spatialization of this music is amazing, as well as its overall feeling and mood.   

During the concert, Tomita played some of his favorite tracks  written by composers such as J.S. Bach, G. Mahler, R. Strauss, C. Debussy, R. Wagner, A. Dvorak and Stravinsky, among others. Tomita's arrangements are superb and inspired...

3 commentaires:

IMI a dit…

TOMITA!!! This is exciting. Thanks.

You wouldn't happen to have 'Pictures at an Exhibition' would you?

cdeck a dit…

Thanks for the Tomita posts ...Its been awhile since I listened to Tomita, thanks again

Dreamer a dit…

you are welcome :-)