American Record Guide March April 1998 / David W Moore

Naito: Strings & Time

Akemi Naito (b. 1956) grew up in Tokyo and moved to New York City in 1991. This disc contains mostly chamber music written since she arrived here. It opens with Winter Shadow, a two-movement piece for two guitars. This is a curious composition where I is more or less traditionally scored, while II begins with some odd harmonic effects and goes on to some major tone-bending, apparently without frets, fascinating and unexplained. Rain, Calling Autumn is a suite for piano. Again I uses the unreconstructed instrument in vaguely Debussian terms, while II plays with the silent depression of tone clusters and their effect on the resonance of the rest of the instrument, and III requires the insertion of a dime between two strings a la Cage.

Interlude, for cello and piano, is a 7-minute work where Naito goes it alone without benefit of reconstructing the sound. This is the most recent piece, written in 1996. It is quite beautifully lyrical, showing a strong feeling for melody as well as experimenting with various attractive sonic relationships between cello and piano. Solitude for alto sax and electronic enhancement was Naito’s first composition on moving to New York. It is the longest single movement on the program and puts both instrument and electronics through some unusual paces, from the expected multiphonics and bent tones through amplified key clicks and breathing effects. This one seems a bit extended at 10 minutes. Then follows a tape piece, Electronic Landscape, in four movement, full of imaginative and amusing sounds. Strings & Time, an 11-minute triptych for 13 strings, is full of delicate and rich harmonies and effective sonorities. The disc ends with an early work from 1979, Secret Song for solo guitar. Naito has a delicate touch, and this is an attractive introduction to her work.

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