Kodo Caltech Concert

We may be moving toward a kinder, gentler America, but Kodo seems, if anything, more stern and concentrated than ever. The group’s One Earth Tour this year brought it to Beckman Auditorium at Caltech in Pasadena Thursday and Friday, with a characteristically tight, intense program.

The Japanese drummers’ intermissionless performance has been purged of its feminine elements, dropping the costumed, quasi-narrative folk dances, leaving a forceful, almost stark program of music as martial art. Even their shamisen duet, in the loud, florid Tsugaru style, seemed a grim, ritual duel.

When Kodo relaxes, however, it does so with athletic exuberance. The centrally placed, processional “Issen” and the encores brought the house lights up and the beaming drummers out, capering in the aisles and playing to the audience with all the joyful zest of the Oba Oba cast.

As experienced Thursday, the program proved familiar in outline and many details. It began with Maki Ishii’s racketing “Dyu-Ha,” bringing the drummers onstage through the audience, pounding wooden clappers, and built carefully to the entrance of the massive o-daiko and the great drum’s ceremonial thunder.

In between, the agenda touched varied topics. Its lyrical--but always tautly focused--items were Motofumi Yamaguchi’s “Hae,” for koto, oke-daiko and steel drums, and shinobue flute songs, one with antiphonal response from the balcony.

“Ryogen no Hi,” with its leaping, combative cymbals, and Leonard Mitsutada Eto’s “Yu Karak” provided moments of athletic humor. It is, however, the fury and impossibly disciplined speed of Roetsu Tosha’s “Chonlima,” the savage “Miyake” assault on the large miya-daikos, and the strenuous “Yatai Bayashi” finale that are most characteristic.