Music Reviews : Cultural Variety in ‘Masters of Tradition’

The “Masters of Tradition: Japanese and American” program Wednesday at the Japan America Theatre opened with an arresting formal ritual, but closed with an amorphous experiment.

Two high points emerged from the proceedings, part of the “Music From Japan” series: Meisho Tosha’s formal yokobue (transverse bamboo flute) solo, “Great Lion” from the Noh play “Shakkyo” (Stone Bridge); and jazz composer Anthony Braxton’s “Composition No. 166” for yokobue, woodwinds and synthesizer-computer.

Tosha opened the concert with the Noh-drama excerpt, appearing in traditional dress and kneeling on a red cloth at the front of the stage to play the moody, vibrant piece.

Participants in the Braxton work, which received its premiere last week at the Kennedy Center in Washington, included the composer, Tosha and computer-keyboardist Richard Teitelbaum.

The work is continuous but highly episodic, with several sections creating a feeling of stasis or gravity-less, gaseous space.

Starting from a pointillistic dialogue between the two wind players, Braxton and Tosha progressed through stuttering, insistent exchanges, chattering runs and soundings of a recurrent scalelike melody, as Teitelbaum artfully manipulated their playing.

Tosha also performed his “The Last Supper,” inspired by the Leonardo da Vinci painting. Prompted by the title and a program note, a listener could create specific mental pictures.

The composer was assisted by Teitelbaum.

After intermission the three played Teitelbaum’s “Intera” for yokobue, Western reed instruments, keyboard and interactive computer system.

This piece, also heard for the first time last week in Washington, began with a solo for each man interacting with himself via computer sampling. Once past that, however, at least one listener found the structure and direction of the piece elusive. Long stretches seemed to pass solely for the purpose of creating material that could then be manipulated electronically. But neither the primary nor the secondary material proved very interesting.