15 MICHIAKI UENO Teizō Matsumura (1929–2007), born and raised in Kyoto, grew up in a household steeped in traditional music—his father played the shakuhachi and his mother, the koto. Yet Matsumura pursued his musical education in Western composition at Tokyo University of the Arts. He was drawn to robust, expressive composers such as Ravel and Stravinsky—artists whose music, at times, seems to echo an Asian sensibility. Within Western musical frameworks, Matsumura, too, sought to channel an Asian energy. His Air of Prayer was composed in 1980 for the seventeen-string koto, an instrument created in the 1920s by Michio Miyagi to provide lower registers in ensemble performance—much like the role of the cello. In this sense, Matsumura’s 1985 cello version of the piece feels natural. The work surges with dark, brooding bass lines and occasionally gives way to weeping, plaintive gestures. Ueno describes sensing in its hypnotic ostinatos a distinct Japanese aesthetic—one that finds beauty in shadow and embraces emotional subtlety.
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