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The
International Guitar Convention took place in
Berlin from 2nd to 15th
November. I would like to thank with all my
heart the organizer for inviting the Congress.
In particular, I wish to thank Prof. Karl
Junkmann and Maestro Siegfried Behrend for
their hospitality. I learned many things
during this Congress and I consider it my
obligation to transmit to the Japanese people
what I experienced. I wish to be able to
develop the field of guitar music in in always
better way and I will continue to write
articles about it.
17th
October: departure from Sendai, arrival in
Tokyo and preparation of material for the
Congress. 23th October: departure
from the airport of Haneda with the company
SAS and arrival at Manila for a stay. 24th
Octobert: departure from Manila to Rom to the
south. 25th October: arrival in
Rome and departure from Rome to Düsseldorf
passing by at Zurich, and from Düsseldorf I
arrive by changing airplane at Berlin. When I
arrived in Berlin, Prof. Dr. Karl Junkmann of
the Studio Schöring awaited me who accompanied
me to the Hotel Pension Teske.
On
26th October I met Prof. Siegfried
Behrend, organizer of the Congress, who was
returning from a tournée in Russia. On
27th October: press conference at
the restaurant Berliner Kindl with the journal
Die Kurier. For the first time I met
Prof. Behrend of 25 years being especially
active and sympathetic. Arrival of Bruno Henze,
harpist at the theatre of Berlin East after
the Second World War, after having lost all
his instruments and his partitions as well as
all the writing that his father Carl Henze had
left, who is now a teacher in the zone Wedding
of Berlin West.
From
27th October on: I start to have
meetings with Behrend and to go to listen to
the exercises of the orchestra and the chamber
music all the days. In the meantime I visited
museums, the zoo and the botanic garden.
On
30th October: arrival of Prof.
Ekmetzoglou of the Conservatory of Athens and
of Prof. Stephan Pratt of the Conservatory of
Ankara. Prof. Ekmetzoglou, who has only 48
years, has now become a very good artist. I
had some lessons with Andrés Segovia and
Emilio Pujol at the Accademia Chigiana of
Siena. Being asked by Maestro Jiro Nakagawa, I
tried to get some information from Prof.
Ekmetzoglou about his Maestro Nicolas Lavdas,
resulting in the promise that he would send me
inforamtion and photos after his return to
Athens.
On 1st
November arrived the Japanese Takamine and
Prof. Heinz Bischoff with his wife. It is the
first time that I met Prof. Bischoff, who had
more than 70 years, and I was moved by his
performance on lute at the home of Behrend. At
Berlin, I saw on the street the information
about the XXth International Guitar Congress
that will start tomorrow.
2nd
November: opening of the Congresso at
Eichengalerie in the Charlottenburg Palace in
which dominates a lamp of 300 alighted candels
alighted that illuminates an very well dressed
audience. The curtain of the Congress opens
with a divertimento by Mozart directed by
Maestro Hannuschke. The programmes of the
Congress foreseen during the day are the
following: seminars, conferences, speeches and
meetings, while the evening programmes will
consist of concerts in different rooms
starting at 8 o clock. There will be
recitals by Erner Berger and by Gimpel,
but I don not have the time to go there for
listening. Karajan is on tournée
outside Berlin. I met with Mr. Konrad Wölki
and his wife.
My
conference took place on 7th
November at 10 am and I had a lot of applause
by Prof. Romolo Ferrari (represantant of
Italy) and of all the others, as well for the
idea to use a projector and the paintings.
Also the performance of the piece Matasuri
by Syoji Wakamatsu went well interpretated by
Takamine. There are many requests for the
manuscript of my conference.
At
the guitar exhibition organized by the music
company Bote & Bock since 5th
November participated from Japan the guitars
handmadde by Nakade and by Kawano, Dynamic
Guitar of Yamaha and of Koga (only presented
as photo). There were as well exposed the
cords ‘Marnko’ of Mr. Yoshiyuki Koishikawa.
Because Berlin has dry air, the guitar sounds
good. Mr. Kano presented his guitar ‘Mokurei’
only by photo, but Adolf Meiner liked it very
much and Behrend and Henze admired in
particular the accuracy of the finitions.
There were also exposed various methods and
between them: The Method of the Guitar
by Yasuo Abe, The Technique of the Guitar
by Kyomoto, Tarrega-Roch by Masao Koga
and The Method of the Guitar by Hisao
Ito. There was as well a presentation of
Japane music on disc: the Gagaku, the Music of Koto, the music of
Morinari Takei and the music of Masao Koga.
Herbert Baumann was especially fascinated by
the music Gagaku and asked serveral times for
it.
The
evening of 8th November dedicated
to Japanese music for guitar, was organized by
the German-Japanese Association in the
Congress Hall, a room as big as the Palace
Japanese Youth in Tokyo with a very good
acustic. It was nice to see more than hundred
cars that arrived for the concert. The
Japanese flag was placed on the stage with the
flag of Berlin on the right and the German
flag on the left. Before our performance, the
Consul Hogan pronounced a speech.
I
disliked a lot that Yasumasa Kohara had not
been able to come to play, but in his place we
had some special performers, like the flutist
Norio Oshima and the soprano Shigeko Yano, who
had a great success appearing in kimono. At 7
pm in the evening of the same day, was
foreseen a transmission of our concert on RIAS
(only transmission during the Congress). After
the concert, we were invited by the Consul and
Ms Hogan to a reception at the hotel Kempinski
in honour of Prof. Karl Junkmann.
I
have to admit that Prof. Behrend having only
25 years was really very good to organize this
Congress of two weeks, without being able to
count on the collaboration of Prof. Bruno
Henze and Prof. Conrad Welch, who both have a
certain age.
I
would have wished to meet Erwin Schwarz-Reiflingen,
but I received a letter with greetings from
him, as he was not able to be present. I knew
him well as editor of Die Gitarre, as I
have published The Studies for Guitar.
Behrend is not yet perfect as guitarist, but
he is very good in combined music, with chant
and orchestra. I have to mention as wel that
he was not perfect in hosting the
participants, but he was very good in
realizing the Congress even without the advice
of the old Maestri for guitar. What we
appreciated in particular, was the support of
RIAS and SFD and the collaboration of young
musicians and good composers as Herbert
Bauman, Heiz Hartig, Hannuschke and Carl
Goroin. An ideal situation für a young
musician and I would say important for all of
us.
I
felt a bit the absence of Spain and France.
The partecipating musicians that did not
appear on the stage, like Jim Gilbert,
guitarist and painter from Mexico, Manuel
Alboreda from Columbia, Stephan Pratt from
Ankara (Turkey) and Moshe Levy from Israel,
did participate at the Congress every day.
Prof. Ekmetzoglou from Athens, who had three
lessons with Segovia and Pujol at the
Accademia Chigiana, seemed to be already a
great artist. Enrico Tagliavini from Italy had
the signs of the Accademia Chigiana on his
jacket and a good technique to play well
Legnani, but he is not yet perfect as an
artist.
Personally, I was profoundly impressed by the
performance on lute of Prof. Heinz Bischoff
with lady Rapp-Poli and the most emotional
thing about this thatI was able to listen to
it in the antique hall of Charlottenburg
Palace.
It
was worthwhile to participate at the Congress.
I was really satisfied of all these
opportunities. As soon as I will return to
Japan, I will write some music for lute with
the precise indications I had only now and I
must say that I was lucky to listen to
performances of that high level, in particular
of combined music, like guitar with flute,
chamber music and with orchestra.
I
would like to add an unforgetable
collaboration of the soprano Shigeko Yano and
the flutist Norio Oshima, both resident in
Berlin.
The
soprano Shigeko Yano is very good and on 26th
October she sang as soloist in the Hall of the
Conservatory the Messe in si minore of Bach,
directed by Maestro Karl Forster, with the
quire of the Cathedral St. Hedwig and other
singers: Hildegard Rütgers (contralto), Helmut
Kerbo (tenor), Hans-Olaf Hudemann (basso). We
really feel proud about her. The soprano Yano
did sing many times with the guitaris Behrend
having a contract with RIAS until 1960. She
will send me one of their registrated tapes.
I
did not imagine that our concert would go on
transmission, which means that we are
considered as exotic by the Germans and which
does not mean that we are very good. In the
newspaper, we found a not so good critic about
our concert with the enchanting The Exotic
Sound and it looks like the Germans are
admiring Japan a lot.
Something other that I did not expect, was the
proposal to take part in a documentation, a
film of SFB (Sender Freies Berlin) which will
be send to the cultural department of the
Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the
Consulate.
Besides Tagliavini who did return to Italy
before us, the participants of the film were
Prof. Bischoff who played on the lute, Prof.
Ekmetzoglou who performed a Greek melody and
the soprano Yano who sang Japanese music
(accompanied by Behrend), Takamine ed myself.
Takamine left for Hamburg to listen to the
concert of Segovia on 13th
November. On 15th November we did
receive an invitation to participate in the
film Kunstfilm, organized by the
Akademie für Bildende Kunst. The participants
were Rolf Rapp and Nives Poli (wife of Rapp
and Prima Ballerina of the Scala as well as
classic musician). I am looking forward to see
this beautiful film that they will send to us.
On
16th November, one day after the
ending of the Congress, I saw the film Dr.
Albert Schweitzer at the Filmbühne. This
was a wonderful occasion for me to enter in
this dimension before going to Africa. It was
nice to listen to the text and the voice of
the young Schweizer and to see him play the
organ of the church of Güyunsbach, whil his
cat Susie was offering its collaboration on
the pedals of the organ. I am looking forward
to go to Africa to visit Dr. Schweizer.
I. Takahashi,
La mia partecipazione al Ventesimo
Congresso Internazionale della Chitarra,
in «Armonia», V, n. 6, 1958, pp. 1-4.
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