Un beau jour de printemps

Takashi Ogawa was born in Japan in 1960. He attended his first guitar lessons in his country and then took courses with Hector Quine, studied at the Guildhall School of « Music in London, at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris and with Alberto Ponce. After winning several awards as a performer he went on to study harmony and counterpoint. In 1995 he was awarded the Takei Award in Japan for his Elegie pour la stèle d'un inconnu. Un beau jeur de Printemps was composed for the guitar quartet of the Music School in Amboise. You will perhaps discover some pedagogical purposes here, which are developed quite successfully. The first movement, Matin, alternates the regular movement of quavers with full notes and also with silences. You already find tone clusters, seconds or sevenths alternating with fourths and thirds. But there is no sense of aggression in these dissonances; they bring more colour than tension. The following movement, Sortie, begins with a sequence of descending major thirds that remind me of the thirds in Villa-Lobos Etude No 5. Again here the distribution of voices is exemplary. A scale played by the first guitar is reflected in the opposite direction by the second and third guitars. Have you ever heard Hanon's Lessons for Piano? Exercise is a parody of that, full of humour. It ascends gradually, increasing tension. There is always something helping you to keep concentration; the dialogue with another guitar, a parallel voicing. But don't be surprised if somebody laughs! The fourth movement, Chagrin, allows all guitars to play a lovely tune by turns and the next one, Jeux, includes some percussive affects. A very simple arpeggio that is distributed for two guitars adds a special, spatial feeling. Fête is a dancing conclusion in 6/8. There are not any overtly extravagant rhythms or effects. The modernism of these pieces is finely achieved through the intervals, the dissonances, and the horizontal or vertical chromaticisms. This is an excellent work for guitar quartet, interesting and not too difficult. The imitations and parallelisms invite you to play as well as your colleagues and also 'together' with them. The clusters and dissonances broaden your experience in listening. I will be keeping an eye out for new works from this composer.
(Isabel Siewers, Classical Guitar Magazine, September 2003)