Customer Reviews

Japanese Masterpieces for the Shakuhachi

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I'm certainly not a master of the genre, and was unfamiliar with the instrument, but I really enjoyed the CD. I picked it up at a library sale, and it was as calming and unusual a piece as I had hoped it to be. The music is haunting and lyrical.

This is an old Lyrichord album of Zen honkyoku, religious pieces for the traditional bamboo flute in the style of the old itinerant Zen monks and, later, of the samurai. (The breathing involved in sustaining the sound of the shakuhachi is also useful in martial arts, and some warriors took up the instrument following their martial training. In fact, a sturdy shakuhachi makes a good bludgeon, and it was sometimes used as such - which is astonishing when you consider how expensive these instruments are now!)

Many of these pieces have been recorded on newer, digital or at least higher-quality analog recordings and the audiophile might prefer to seek those out. A virtue of the quality performances on this disc is that the musicians are an older generation of shakuhachi masters, and they give you a good feel for an older style. (This is nothing against contemporary players, including westerners who have mastered the instrument and incorporated it into modern music.)

Unlike the more refined and polished contemporary classical performance pieces performed in studio or in concert for audience appreciation, this is a field recording made in 1976 on location at two Fuke Temples in Tokyo, Japan. What is heard here is Sui-Zen (Blowing Zen) played by older generation Komuso monks for the sole purpose of their own direct meditative experience. It is not a matter of playing music conducive to a meditative state, but rather the playing itself is the meditation.

The first three tracks were recorded at the Meianji Temple, traditionally considered to be the original headquarters of the Fuke sect in Japan. The piece is entitled Koku, referring to "emptiness" or "nothingness" and is among the oldest and most revered in the tradition. It is also known as "A Bell Ringing in an Empty Sky." Two monks play shakuhaci while a temple bell is heard at intervals, underscoring the meaning suggested in the title.

Two monks, alternating between playing three sizes of shakuhachi, chanting, and the intermittent tinkling of a small delicate bell, also perform Sekiheki No Fu.

The playing of just the shakuhaci returns on Matsukaze.

The remaining tracks are solo performances recorded at Nanzenji Temple.

While the better-known recordings of the highly revered Shakuhaci Masters Goro Yamaguchi and Kohachiro Miyata are deservedly considered essential classics of the genre, these unadorned performances by anonymous monks are indeed a rare treasure.

Highly recommended.