Customer Reviews

Kosmos

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In Tomita's music I have found serene beauty, relaxation, landscapes of wonder, mysterious spaces, thrilling excitement, inspiration, and some fun. He creates his music with more depth, color, imagery, feeling, and thought than any other synthesized music I have ever heard.

The big box set of all 11 CDs has finally been released! Considering that a number of Tomita CDs are over $30, and all the CDs in the box have been remastered, it is almost a bargain! So here is my list, improved and updated for accuracy (August 2009)... As a person who started collecting Tomita and lots of other electronic music when I was 19 in 1979, plus the original symphony orchestra versions of the classical music that Tomita used, I hope you consider me qualified to create the following list of Tomita albums and review them as well.

Note on the 1991 Surround Sound CDs (Snowflakes to Kosmos): Tomita originally mixed his albums for special Quadraphonic LPs and tapes, but for some reason, the rear channel sounds almost completely disappear, no matter what stereo equipment a person listens on.

SNOWFLAKES ARE DANCING 1974
(11 Debussy pieces)
Some say Snowflakes is Tomita's best CD. I think it is in his top three. I love the range of styles in this album, the relaxing beauty, the depth of colors. The Snowflakes album is very enjoyable. One of the few CDs I have that I like to hear again and again.

The newly remastered High Performance CD is audiophile quality and adds Prelude To The Afternoon of a Faun also by Debussy.

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION 1975 (Mussorgsky)
Also in the top 3. For this album Tomita created some of the most unusual, high quality electronic sounds ever heard. Then he used these sounds very effectively in good orchestrations. The listening is as enjoyable as it is bizarre; quite an accomplishment in itself. (Unlike other synthesized music, I have never gotten a headache listening to this or any other Tomita recording. Not even close. Not even when playing his music loud, which I love to do. )

FIREBIRD 1976
(Stravinsky: Firebird Suite. Debussy: Prelude To The Afternoon of A Faun. Mussorgsky: Night On Bare Mountain.)

Firebird is one of Tomita's best CDs. The Round of the Princesses is beautiful. The Infernal Dance of King Kastchei is exciting, scary, and LOUD - much more so than any performance by any orchestra. The Finale is so awesome; Tomita played it at the end of his live concerts.

THE PLANETS 1976 (Holst)
This one album is a completely different mood for Tomita. This is one Tomita album that is far better than any symphony orchestra performance could every be. Imagine Lord of The Rings before CGI. It is as if Holst was so far ahead of his time, that he composed The Planets for Tomita.

KOSMOS or COSMOS 1978
(Star Wars Title. Space Fantasy- R. Strauss: Thus Spake Zarathustra, Wagner: Ride of The Valkyries and Tannhauser Overture. Honnegar: Pacific 231. Ives: Unanswered Question. Rodrigo: Aranjuez. Grieg: Solveig's Song. Dinicu-Heifetz: Hora Staccato. Bach-Tomita: The Sea Named Solaris.)

This is a science fiction album without a theme, really. On this album: Star Wars is cute. The Space Fantasy is pretty good. Pacific 231 is exciting and fun, a quality piece. You can almost see the mechanical motions flying through space after the train leaves the tracks. Tomita's interpretation of the mystery and solitude of The Unanswered Question is far better than any orchestral performance of it! Hora Staccato is lots of fun. And Carl Sagan used the amazing Sea Named Solaris in his "Cosmos." The Sea Named Solaris is one of the greatest works of music every performed by anyone. Tomita fans and collectors should enjoy most of this CD.

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE 1979 - A Musical Fantasy of Science Fiction
(Sibelius: Valse Triste. Williams: Close Encounters. Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet, Scythian Suite, Symphonies 5 and 6, Violin Concerto 1.)

After nearly 30 years of listening to The Bermuda Triangle off and on, I have decided that it is my all time favorite record album, CD, concept album, and my all time favorite synthesized music.

Another reviewer is absolutely right... Turn off the lights, put the phone on silent, turn the volume way up, and sit down and listen! Really listen!! Because The Bermuda Triangle is an Experience; A Phenomenal, Powerful, Enlightening, Enjoyable Experience!! And it's fun too.

Inexplicably, the U.S. CD releases stopped with Kosmos. The Bermuda Triangle is much better than Kosmos. I could type two pages on The Bermuda Triangle, and you can find many pages on various websites. But I will just say that the orchestrations and performances of the music itself all fit together masterfully to tell a story that is part thrilling science fiction and part impressionistic dream. I especially like the second half- the really good Prokofiev stuff. The sounds Tomita used in creating this album are his most sophisticated and fascinating yet, as innovative and high quality as Pictures At An Exhibition or more. The quality of the recording is bright, full, deep, clear, and clean. The whole experience is extraordinary. I am so grateful the album is on CD.

BOLERO or DAPHNIS AND CHLOE 1980
(Ravel: Daphnis and Chloe, Pavane for A Dead Princess, Bolero, Mother Goose Suite.)

This is a very good album with the best performance of The Mother Goose Suite that I have heard, by far. I love the range of musical styles in the Mother Goose Suite. You can actually hear the fairies in the Fairy Garden (they sound like hummingbirds). Plus, there are only two Daphnis and Chloes that I like better than this one. And the Pavane is very nice.

THE GRAND CANYON 1982 (Grofe)
(Bonus track: Syncopated Clock by Leroy Anderson)

Most music critics would say that this performance of The Grand Canyon Suite is not as good as a symphony orchestra's. But it is worth checking out, as parts of it are far more colorful, magical, and entertaining than any symphony orchestra version I have ever heard. Tomita's Painted Desert gives a feeling of flying low over vast mysterious, enchanted, moonlit sands. On The Trail is a lot of fun, although not as good as orchestra performances. And The Thunderstorm is exhilarating and even a little frightening, especially when turned up Loud. You can actually Hear the Lightning, Feel the Thunder, and then See a Rainbow at the end. Only Tomita could do that!! This is the shortest Tomita album. It would easily fit on a CD with Canon of The Three Stars.

CANON OF THE THREE STARS or DAWN CHORUS 1984
(Pachelbel: Canon. Rachmaninoff: Vocalise. Albinoni: Adagio. Bach: Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring. 4 pieces from Villa Lobos: Bachianis Brasileiras 2, 4, and 7.)

Sweet is the word I would use to describe pretty much this whole album. Some tracks are even cute, although at least one is solemn and another poignant. The quality of this album is not nearly as great as Snowflakes, Pictures, The Bermuda Triangle, or the Ravel Album. It almost seems that Tomita did this one in his sleep, but some tracks are very good, and since all the tracks are individual pieces it would be worth owning as a reference CD.

LIVE AT LINZ, AUSTRIA 1985 - THE MIND OF THE UNIVERSE
(Live concert with huge speakers on both sides of the Danube River and live soloists. Includes 7 pieces from previous albums- some with new arrangements and live soloists. Plus, Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring. Japanese Traditional: Cranes In Their Nest. Vaughn Williams: The Lark Ascending. Wagner: Tristan Und Isolde-Liebestod. Beethoven: Ode To Joy with full Choir and soloists.)

In my opinion, this is in Tomita's top five best albums. It contains some of the most beautiful and unique performances ever put on a disk. The live violin solo (Mariko Senju) of the Lark Ascending is by far the most captivating, lovely, and perfect I have ever heard; the best performance of The Lark Ascending that I know of. The same violinist does an outstanding job on Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1: Moderato; Allegro Moderato. This is the part of The Bermuda Triangle near the end that gets so exciting, and with the live violinist and Tomita's magical orchestral creations, it is truly one of the most thrilling musical experiences I have ever enjoyed.

I also love the Wagner: Tristan Und Isolde-Liebestod (which first appeared on this album). So much depth and feeling, it is hard to describe how lovely it is. This album also has an extended version of Cranes In Their Nest, a very good performance by Goro Yamaguchi, on the Shakuhachi.

Of the two concert CDs, this one has more awe-inspiring moments, and more depth. It is also the longest Tomita album ever made, which is perfect, since it is so enjoyable.

Note on sound quality: I appreciate good sound quality. This CD does have imperfect moments, but over all it is very good. I listened on my pretty good car stereo system last night turned up very LOUD. The most important parts are clean. There is reverb at times, but it is natural, bouncing off things in the area. It could have been mixed better, but it is very hard for a huge concert like this to be recorded perfectly. Also, during The Conversation from Close Encounters and the first couple minutes of Ode To Joy you can hear the helicopter that was holding up a huge speaker during the show. Actually hearing a helicopter on a CD may seem silly... BUT, it is these things that make you Feel as if you are At the Live Concert, and this is a huge Plus.

LIVE IN NEW YORK 1988 - BACK TO THE EARTH
(Live concert with live soloists. Includes 7 pieces from previous albums- some with new arrangements and live soloists. Plus Dukas: Fanfare. Mahler: Symphony 3 in D Minor - 5th Movement. Traditional: Chinese War Lord Going Home. Gershwin: Rhapsody In Blue. Fisher-Dvorak: Goin' Home.)

The Live In NY music is less demanding than Live At Linz, which makes it more suited for playing in the background. It is almost as good as the Live At Linz concert (above). But it has fake reverb all the way through, and is not as bright and clear as the other Tomita CDs. Not the best, but worth having.

These last two CDs are my all time favorite live concert albums.

BACH FANTASY 1996
10 separate Bach pieces, which include two tracks from previous albums. (Part of The Sea Named Solaris is mixed different.)

This Tomita CD has found its way into my top 5.

A rare, expensive CD, that is not included in the big new Box Set. This CD features some new sounds and musical styles for Tomita Classical, a really wide variety of them. Several of the tracks are most enjoyable. The popular Toccata and Fugue is a very good, virtuoso straight performance on very cool Synth Organ. My subwoofer liked it too! This is a perfect finale for the entire Tomita Classical Line.

IN CONCLUSION
Other reviewers on Amazon have done a more eloquent job than I of describing Tomita's amazing musical style, but I have enjoyed creating this guide. I hope you enjoyed it too. Thank you.

If one can get past the laughably bad Star Wars opening track, this album is a stunner. Though lacking the fluid continuity of his previous efforts, Tomita manages to select darker, more beautiful, and more moody pieces than before, creating an incredible dream-like atmosphere without resorting to the usual space-ship and "alien" sounds that tarnished The Planets and The Bermuda Triangle. His sound became larger, more ambient, and denser. The final Bach medley "The Sea Named Solaris" is Tomita's finest hour, and this album is a must for any fan or Tomita's work, or of electronic music. A flawed but still great work.

I have this album in vinyl, should be better without background hiss. Star Wars theme is quite interesting, lovers of "the force" should be impressed. Worth every dime.

Through all the albums I've heard by Isao Tomita, he infuses the original composition often with a distinctive style, often very traditionally Japanese in the way the musical phrase is rendered. The Star Wars piece is fun, almost deliberately silly. Included is "The Sea Named Solaris" - which was inspired by the Tarkovsky film, which in turn was based on the Stanislaw Lem story. And anyone who's seen a circus will recognize "Hora Staccatto" and see how he's rendered the tune in his own style. The other tracks are by turns grand, thoughtful, pensive, and reworked into something new. Tomita's version of Rodrigo's "Aranjuez" has a haunting quality and has been a favorite of mine for many years. Arguably, Tomita's version of Holst's "The Planets" is a superior album, and I've come to prefer it to the classical renditions of the suite. Nonetheless, KOSMOS is a great mix of different composers for a solid exposure to Tomita's music, and even decades after its initial release, continues to hold up well. Like another pioneer, Wendy Carlos (she's a real genius!), most of Tomita's early albums were renditions of classical music in the electronica style. If you like this one, I'd also recommend Tomita's version of "The Planets" and "The Bermuda Triangle" -- the later which includes some of Tomita's own pieces.

This is yet another great album by Isao Tomita that presents his interpretations and adaptations of famous works by Grieg, Charles Ives, and J.S. Bach (amongst others) played entirely on synthesizers. Although Kosmos (1978) opens on a humorous note with the Stars War theme (which includes a snippet of what sounds like two robots humming in a call and answer fashion and then laughing because one of them messes the answer up), this is a pretty dark album overall.

The eight tracks on the album range in length from 3:28 to the lengthy closing track The Sea Named "Solaris" (12:26). There are some sweeping and haunting moments on the album and creepy, mechanical atmospherics that renders Kosmos my favorite album by Isao Tomita. I think that what I appreciate the most about the compositions on Kosmos is that while they deviate quite a ways from the original work, they are engaging, humorous at times, and fairly involved for electronica - Isao is very good at incorporating dynamics and squeezing a large number of tone colors out of his synthesizers. In this respect I would class him with other great progressive electronic composers like Larry Fast (Synergy) and Vangelis.

All in all, this is a fine album of progressive electronic music. Kosmos is very highly recommended along with Snowflakes are Falling (1974) and The Tomita Planets (1976).

I have collected Tomita's albums since 'Snowflakes' and listen to them still, several times a month. I remember my Dad playing the piano when I was a child. He played Caire de Lune and Liebestraum. (I think that's all he knew.) In 1975, I remember browsing in Wherehouse Records when I heard this weird music over the PA. I recognized it as Claire de Lune but I could not identify what instrument it was. It was no instrument. It was Tomita and the synthesizers. I was taken right there. I bought every Tomita record when they came out from then on and I have been listening ever since.

If you can comprehend that these sounds have never been heard in nature before. They are entirely man-created. I am lost for words as to how Tomita found and decided to use all the different sounds that he uses in this music. This music also drove me to find and listen to the orchestral equivalents and I have quite a library now. Tomita is other-worldly. If you do listen in the dark, as has been suggested, you can be taken away to outer space. You should get 'The Tomita Planets' and see (or feel.)

I understand Isao Tomita is, naturally, an accomplished musician in the 'real' world, too. I congratulate him for the peace and comfort he has given me for the last thirty-five years and I look forward to the next.

One thing that is not enough commented upon I find is Tomita's great sense of humor. Just take track 1, Tomita's take on John Williams' Star Wars film theme. You'd think that would be the occasion for Tomita to let the full stops out, adding piles of bombast to Williams' own. Not at all: you simply get nonchalant whistling against a rhythmic accompaniment of what I can only dscribe as quasi-mouth harp: how ironic. And the whisling segues at 2:20 into... Beethoven's letter to Elise, with ironic echoing from the mouth harp, seguing again with what appears like the bursting in laughter of R2D2. The disco bombast comes only at the end, as a coda.

In comparison, his Strauss Zarathustra (Kubrick's Space Odyssey) is respectful to the original (and bombastic) to a fault. But seguing into Wagner's Ride of the Walkyries (Apocalypse Now) than Tannhäuser Overture (did any film director ever use that?) sounds quite appropriate.

The disc is entertaining, as everything from Tomita, but overall I don't find his arrangements here as outlandishly imaginative as his Mussorgsky Pictures, for instance (see my review of Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition - Tomita), or some of his Debussy (Debussy: Snowflakes Are Dancing, Prelude, etc / Tomita). Contrary to those, here I find that he often stays too close to, too respectful of the original compositions and timbres, and I can't say that his Wagner or Ives adds (or simply changes) that much to the originals, in color and/or atmosphere. Maybe it is because all those pieces originally COME with timbres, I mean orchestral timbres rather than, as with Mussorgsky's cycle in its original guise, the (relatively) monochromatic palette of the piano. And Ives and Wagner are already such masters at orchestral colors and atmospheres! No wonder then that Hora Staccato (Heifetz' transcription of the famous "Gipsy" encore by Dinicu is for violin and piano) should be one of Tomita's most effective transcriptions here; he makes it sound like circus music - which it is. His Ajanjuez Adagio also strays a little more from the original, although the Romantically passionate gist of it is there, and so does Grieg's Solveig Song from Peer Gynt, especially at 3:20 when what sounds like an old, crackling and distorted 78rmp recording from a distant past interrupts the music. And praise Tomita to have tackled Honegger's Pacific 231, a relative rarity even in Classical music. But Tomita's "real" composition is the concluding "The Sea named `Solaris'", after Bach's Three-Part Sinfonia No.2 (the track listing calls it "Invention", but the Inventions are two-part, and three-part are the Sinfonias, says my score) and Choral-Prelude for organ BWV 639 "Ich ruf zu dir, Jesu Christ" - yeah, but so distantly "after", with the original works so embedded in Tomita's own serving, that it becomes Tomita's own "Fantasy on Bach", whiffs of Bach caught up in the winds of space, rather than any strict arrangement of the two original compositions. Still, when intoning the Choral-Prelude, at 4:56, Tomita dutifully uses organ timbres.

TT 52:54.

If you're just browsing for something new, the price makes this a good buy. If you are into classical or electronic music, I feel you'll flip. Kosmos if my favorite Tomita work. From the bouncy and faniful, "Star Wars" to the stark,"Spacefantasy" and the sublime, "Aranjuez," with its quiet and melodious qualities. "The Sea of Solaris," its just powerful piece with excellent organ sounds and unconventional percusion, yet the melodies start quiet and build up in intensity. The remastering is good, orchestral sounds great and the other, "more electronic sounds," fit in well. This is the one CD of his that lends itself to creating images in one's mind. It is also produced in surround sound.

Had this CD when it was originally in vinyl, Have several of his vinyl albums and would love to be able to get them all now on CD.

Tomita recorded Kosmos in 1977 and, although I have not heard all his work, I put this one among his greatest albums.
This is not his interpretation of just one classical composer, there are tracks inspired by John Williams, Strauss, Wagner, Honegger, Ives, Rodrigo, Grieg, Dincui-Heifetz and finally Bach.
I can't get on with Pacific 231 based on Honegger, however the remainder are completely fantastic, with special mention for "Star Wars" Main Title and Space Fantasy.
The Sea Named "Solaris", based on Bach, is the ultimate in beautiful, flowing music which closes an entirely essential CD for Tomita fans and others who enjoy electronic sounds.