Music
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A World History Free from Both Eurocentrism and Orientalism 4
The Mediterranean Civilizational Sphere: An Extension of the Orient (The source text of this series is “In Search of Lost Modernity” by Akio KAWATO. The English edition of this book (originally written in Japanese) is on https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hiRK7kjbX0Hxd2NOxPqtQlVWgjDHgKCr/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MB0Me9P5Lpa2HGceuJUdMqqQ2CRHQSxa/edit The copyright belongs to the author, Akio Kawato . （This installment serves as an introduction to the upcoming section on ancient Greek…
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The Hollowing Out of American Pop Music
Akio KAWATO Lately, pop music in many advanced countries seems increasingly mechanical, standardized, and overly technological. It feels very different from the American pop music of the late 1960s—artists such as Simon & Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, and Carole King—or from Japan’s City Pop scene of the 1980s, represented by artists such as Eiichi Ohtaki, Minako Yoshida, and Taeko Ohnuki. The…
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Comedic Variants for European Serious Operas
The other day I went to see Wagner’s Lohengrin—performed by the Nikikai Opera Company with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. The performance itself was magnificent. But the opera? The libretto struck me as Wagnerian in the worst sense: childish, contrived, and absurdly solemn. And musically this is still early Wagner—endless repetitions of the same booming triads: do-mi-sol, so-shi-re, over and…