‘Van Veen has a lovely, rounded, ringing, almost bell-like sound (highly appropriate for Pärt’s tintinnabuliations) and a wonderful sense of ebb and flow. But his language of minimalist jazz is one enjoyed around the world as music that gives listeners the space to think and work and create for themselves. All these pieces feature in Jeroen van Veen’s survey, which is based on the best modern edition of these scores and often differs from Sakamoto’s own, partly improvised recordings.Ĭlassical listeners will appreciate Sakamoto’s breadth of reference: to Chopin (Ubi), Bach (Andata, Solari), Glass (Bibo no Aozora), Satie (Opus), Brahms (Intermezzo) and Ravel (Bachata), for example. Lawrence launched Sakamoto’s career as a film composer, which has gone from strength to strength with scores for The Last Emperor (1987) and The Revenant (2015). In 1983, Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas Mr. Riot in Lagos brought him fame beyond Japan, and he went on to work with many top producers of pop, dance and electro. Around the same time, he worked on his first solo album, the Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto (1978), which blends up-to-date electronic techniques with an old-fashioned gift for good tunes. A comprehensive collection of Sakamoto’s instrumental songs and film music from a master of Minimalist piano.įamed worldwide as a film composer, Ryiuchi Sakamoto began his career as a pianist, creating patterns, phrases and innovative arrangements before joining his first commercial electronic pop band in 1978, the Yellow Magic Orchestra.

Ryuichi sakamoto solari