View of Mt. Fuji from Edo - Excerpt

[Skysaw]

Hello again all.

I\'ve uploaded the final 2:14 of an older orchestral work of mine for a large orchestra, piano, and harp. I will upload the entire piece soon, but I am not yet happy with my work on the strings, and didn\'t want to share it until I had cleaned them up further. You can hear the excerpt here:

View of Mount Fuji from Edo (\"http://www.allhands.com/mp3/fuji_excerpt.mp3\") (excerpt)

I wrote this piece in 1992 as a commissioned work for the Takoma Park Symphony Orchestra. Unfortunately, by the time the work was done, the orchestra had suffered a number of administrative problems, as well as a large reduction in the number of players, and the piece has gone unheard for 12 long years. Finally, I present here the premiere of the last section of it played by the \"GPO Players.\"

This piece was inspired by a woodblock print entitled Mount Fuji from Edo (\"http://www.stmoroky.com/reviews/gallery/hokusai/fuji23.htm\") by the 19th-century Japanese artist Hokusai (1760-1849). The print was part of a collection known as 24 Views of Mount Fuji. I had originally intended to write a suite of six orchestral pieces, each depicting a different print from this collection. The other five were never finished, though I still have the old sketches, so you never know.

Please let me know what you think, and whether I\'ve done the Hokusai print justice.

- Jamie Kowalski

[kensuguro]

I\'m giving it a listen.. man, I\'m on such crappy speakers right now I can barely hear what\'s going on. So, I can\'t say much about the piece.. hey, I hear some tubular bells. (that\'s how crappy the speakers are)

I\'m in Taiwan right now, but perhaps I\'ll give it another listen in my work environment, in modern edo. :-) You can\'t see much of mt. fuji anymore from Tokyo tho..

[Garritan]

Jamie,

Thanks for posting this. I like the composition and the orchestration. It\'s hard to find criticism. If I could offer one suggestion it would be to add a little more space to some of the instruments. I could send you an impulse if you would like.

Thanks for posting this. Keep up the great work!

Gary Garritan

[MalteRathke]

I like it and I\'m looking forward for the rest of it (or should I say the beginning?)..

Malte

[audiopHoBic]

Great, I love it. Simple, elegant, evocative - everything good music should be in my book. I would love to know a little more about your choice of string sections/solo that you used to for the underscore.

BTW is \"Skysaw\" a reference to the Brian Eno piece?

Andy

[Jun Yamamoto]

Jamie,

I also listened to the piece. It is interesting, especially I love the combination of attacks of lower strings and brass ensemble in the latter part of the piece.

Thank you for sharing your music.

BTW, my day office is on the 19th floor in central Tokyo and on a clear day we can see Mt. Fuji. The mountain shows infinite variation of colors and textures depending on time of the day, weather and season.

[Skysaw]

Thought I\'d bump this as there were 144 downloads, and only a couple of opinions. Don\'t be shy... I don\'t mind if you don\'t like it or are indifferent. Just post what you think if you get a moment. images/icons/cool.gif

Thanks!

[pearcebh]

I\'m listening to it now. I love it. I hope I can someday be able to do work that is at least this good.

[Karl Garrett]

Jamie,

You certainly have captured the peaceful majesty of this beautiful mountain. It is definitely a superb musical representation of the print. Wonderful!

[nexus]

Skysaw, I only just listened to your piece at length, and I must say it is certainly one of the best GPO pieces I\'ve heard yet.

The opening reminded me of the music for an episode of the old \"Twilight Zone\" show (the title of the episode escapes me). I mean this in a good way (the show was scored by the top composers of the day like Herrmann and Goldsmith), and you seem to have captured the sound of those old scores in a way that I have not been able to duplicate myself yet.

The rest of the piece is excellent as well. I\'m keeping this one on my HD!

[Skysaw]

Thanks all for your nice comments.

I\'m almost done with the full seven minute piece, and will post it soon. I had to do a tremendous amount of tweaking with the first half, especially with the strings. There are now a ton of GPO instances working. The strings alone have 9 instances, for a total of 45 instruments. I\'ve had to submix the project into three different Sonar files.