“Three Japanese Lyrics“ by Igor Stravinsky (Audio + Sheet Music)

pf: Susan Naricki and Twentieth Century Classics Ensemble, cond/Robert Craft 1. Akahito ; Акахито ; 赤人 (0:05) 2. Mazatsumi ; Мазацуми ; 当純 (0:54) 3. Tsaraïuki ; Tcypайуки ; 貫之 (2:00) Year/Date of Composition:1913 First Performance: 1914-01-11 in Paris, Société Musicale Indépendante First Publication: 1913 Stravinsky’s Three Japanese Lyrics were composed just as the taste for all things Oriental, from fine arts to fashion, was reaching its apex throughout Europe. Nowhere was this fad more rampant than in Paris, where the composer lived and, in 1912, had come upon an anthology of Japanese poetry translated into Russian, providing him with the texts for a group of three songs. These terse and somewhat mournful songs -- “Akahito,“ “Mazatsumi,“ and “Tsaraiuki“ -- represent the composer’s most overt adoption of Far Eastern subject matter. Like many of Stravinsky’s works which draw upon elements from “exotic“ sources, the songs reveal a degree of detachment, objectivity and stylization. The Three Japanese Lyr