Kōjō No Tsuki (Moon over the Ruined Castle)

Composer: TAKI, Rentarō
  • Taki composed this song in 1901,1 the year that he traveled to Leipzig for his short-lived term of study there (he became ill with tuberculosis and had to return to Japan in 1902).2
  • The song’s text is by Japanese poet Bansui Doi (1871-1952); it is a poem inspired by Aizuwakamatsu Castle, in Fukushima Prefecture.3 Taki’s setting is for unaccompanied voice.31 
  • According to Taki’s Grove article, this song was “the best known of early Japanese songs in a European style.”4

Sources

  1. Masakata Kanazawa, “Taki, Rentarō,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed November 24, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000027404.
  2. “Rentaro Taki,” Naxos, accessed November 24, 2021, https://www.naxos.com/person/Rentaro_Taki/20861.htm.
  3. Graham Wade, liner notes to Guitar and Flute Recital, Shin-ichi Fukuda, Shigenori Kudo, Naxos 8.573911, CD, 2018.
  4. Kanazawa, “Taki, Rentarō,” Grove Music Online.

Cut IDs

24378