Yasunori Kawahara
A Life At The Front of the Bass Section
by John Goldsby
originally published in Double Bassist Magazine © 2008 used by permission
As solo bassist with the WDR Symphony Orchestra (the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra), Yasunori Kawahara experiences the thrills and grandeur of a high-profile position. A protagonist of the Cologne music scene since 1980, he sometimes steps away from his orchestral responsibilities into roles chosen to expand his musical horizons.
Kawahara looks at music as a part of life. His playing serves not only the notes on the page, but his fellow musicians, the audience, and the whole of modern society by finding the meaning behind the notes. In order to successfully interpret music from a particular composer or in a certain style, he believes that a bassist must understand the zeitgeist—the spirit of the age—in which the music was conceived. Only then can the music live and breathe.
Music written by contemporary composers for modern orchestras reflects the times we live in; and music written in the past reflects the mood and conditions of those times. Kawahara feels a passion to find the zeitgeist in all of the music he plays, and bring that feeling and understanding into the here-and-now. He tries to transmit the immediacy and urgency of the music to the concert hall audience in real time. He finds that under close examination, music becomes more than just the notes. When one looks at the political and social situations surrounding the conception of the composition, the music becomes alive.
One of the highlights of his recent career was playing Shostakovich 11th Symphony with the WDR Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Semyon Bychkov. “The music of Shostakovich really spoke to me,” Kawahara says. “The 11th Symphony has the title The Year 1905—the time when the massacres in czarist Russia occurred. Playing this piece gave me a totally different view of the music from Shostakovich. Until then, I liked Shostakovich, but I didn’t understand the zeitgeist—the spirit of the age—where Shostakovich was creating his work.”
Shostakovich 11th depicts the brutal slaughter of workers and demonstrators by government forces—events that foresaw the bloody Russia revolution in years that followed. The work, written in 1957, also reflects the composer’s general dissatisfaction with the musical suppression imposed on him by the communist Russian regime. Shostakovich used songs from the workers’ movement as the themes in his symphony—a dark and brooding, menacing and sometimes bombastic work. “He’s possibly the biggest composer for me after Mahler,” Kawahara says. “You can hear the political undertones of the music, when you know the story.”
Yasunori Kawahara was born in 1948, in Hitachi, Japan, 150 kilometers from Tokyo. He began playing double bass at the age of 11 on a student-size bass in the elementary school orchestra. “My teacher showed me how to hold the bow, and how to hold the bass—but not much more,” Kawahara recalls. The school orchestra had a violin, viola, cello, and bass, but also harmonica, xylophone, and tympani—the typical menagerie of instruments common in an elementary school band.
Kawahara followed the path of many young bass players—partially self-taught, but always looking for willing teachers and mentors along the way. He joined an amateur orchestra at age fourteen. “Our amateur orchestra was sometimes augmented for our bi-yearly concerts with some professional musicians from Tokyo. There were usually a couple of professional double bassists there, and I always asked them to show me things on the bass,” he says.
The overwhelming desire to become a professional bassist came somewhat late in life. After high school, Kawahara entered the Faculty of Commerce at Hirotsubashi University in Tokyo where he planned to major in business. He played bass in the university orchestra before eventually deciding to give up crunching numbers for making music. He began seriously practicing and learning the bass at the Toho Gakuen School of Music under the direction of Shunsaku Tsutsumi and Mitsuru Onozaki.
“In the beginning I went through the Simandl methods—Volumes One and Two,” Kawahara says, “and after that I worked through Kreutzer, but that was about all—I’m a little lazy in this area.” Kawahara believes that there are advantages and disadvantages to learning the bass in the late teens and early twenties compared to the early age that most violinists or pianists begin learning their craft.
“They are so young that they can’t really understand the music completely,” Kawahara says. “The teachers try to have fun with the little kids, but the children are not mature enough to really understand the music. On the violin or piano, they try and build technique for a later point when they will use the technique in a musical way—when they understand the music as a part of life. When the children are not mature enough, then the teachers practice technique and are waiting and preparing them for the time when they will be able to approach the music on a mature level.”
Kawahara maintains that since double bass students start at a more mature age, they are already at a point where they can understand the music behind the technique. “Bass players have to start to look for a job after only four or five years of study—assuming they begin at age 17 or 18. They have to become musically self-sufficient very early on. Etudes play an important role in the bassists’ development, but they have less time to spend practicing them than the pianists or violinists who started when they were very young.”
After studying the bass at Toho for four years, Kawahara made his move to Berlin for further studies at the Hochschule der Künste (HDK) with Rainer Zepperitz. He also received ongoing private instruction from Michel Schwalbé, one of the greatest violinists of our time, who was concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic at the time. In 1977, Kawahara won a solo position in the Frankfurter Opern und Museums Orchester—his first professional position. He stayed in Frankfurt three years before taking over the solo bass chair in the WDR Symphony Orchestra (at that time called the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra).
Kawahara recalls one of his first concerts in Cologne playing the New World Symphony and Mozart A Major Violin Concerto with the conductor Karl Böhm as an especially moving event. “Karl Böhm was not doing well physically,” Kawahara says. “It was maybe ten months before he passed away. He was conducting, even though he was quite often not physically able to conduct. He couldn’t feel the time at this point in his life. The concertmaster conducted the orchestra from his chair. The puzzling thing to me was that the music came out 100% Karl Böhm. It was his sound—and he had a very special sound. It was amazing to me—an honor; to experience that music could be played like that. It’s incredible that one person sits there or stands there, and they can make the music happen through their very character.”
Another memorable concert with the WDR Symphony Orchestra was with Günter Wand, performing Bruckner’s 5th Symphony. “Günter Wand demanded perfection,” Kawahara says, “and he had taken a lot of time to rehearse—and he rehearsed very thoroughly. He was a perfectionist, and he knew how to rehearse for perfection—very well planned—with all of the transitions perfectly thought through and rehearsed. We played once in Gürzenich Hall in Cologne, and on the next night in Duisburg. Both nights were absolutely perfect.”
Many conductors can rehearse thoroughly and completely for a long time, but Kawahara insists that Günter Wand possessed a magically insightful way of approaching the music. “He knew in advance where mistakes or problems would arise, and he had rehearsed those spots so well, that they could not go wrong. All of the difficult transitions sounded very natural. He had a way of commanding the full concentration from musicians. The night of both concerts, he was fully concentrating on the music and he couldn’t be distracted—he was there 100%, only for the music.”
Kawahara feels artistically complete as an orchestra musician, but he also finds time for solo projects. His solo recordings are masterworks of technically perfect bass playing focused through the ears and hands of a vastly experienced musician. “I love playing in the orchestra,” Kawahara says. “I don’t play in the orchestra only for the money—I truly identify with being a orchestra musician. A bassist can earn a bit of money playing solo music, but not really make a decent living. “Playing in an orchestra is very nice,” Kawahara adds, “but sometimes there is something missing.”
Kawahara has recorded four solo CDs. The titles hint at Kawahara’s heartfelt and masterful performances: Soul of Double Bass [Largo], The Miracle of the Contrabass [Sony-Japan], Fantasy on Double-Bass [Largo], and Fauré, Saint-Saëns, Paganini, Koussevitzky, Gliére, Vivaldi, Bottesini, Gounod, Mozart [Largo]. Kawahara plays much of the classic solo bass repertoire, demonstrating flawless technique and an astonishing musical sense.
In solo and chamber music, a greater responsibility falls upon the bassist to understand the function and interaction of all of the voices. “Solo playing and chamber music is great fun,” Kawahara says. “The bassist carries the responsibility for the entire piece of music. As a bassist, I am not only looking at the bass part—I am looking at the entire composition. When I am playing chamber music, I can’t decide everything myself, but compared to orchestra playing, the responsibility is much greater. This responsibility makes me very awake—I always have to be there, be awake—and I have to do a lot for the music.”
Kawahara says that even when playing in an orchestra, a bassist should take responsibility for understanding the complete work. By understanding the composition, the score, and what the other sections are doing, the bassist contributes fully to the successful realization of the work. “An orchestra musician can also do that,” Kawahara says. “You can study the music and understand all of the parts. You can read the score—not to contradict the conductor—but to achieve an overview of what is going on. What would I do as conductor? What is better for the music, or worse? To do that day in and day out is very satisfying—a lot of fun.”
Kawahara has performed the Ditters von Dittersdorf Concerto with orchestras in Cologne and Tokyo, and he has presented the Bottesini Grand Duo over one hundred times. “The Grand Duo is not easy,” Kawahara says, “but it is easier to approach than the Dittersdorf. It is a very effective piece of music—very well thought out. The harmonics are not so complicated in the Dittersdorf compared to the Grand Duo, but the broken chords in all registers of the instrument make the piece technically challenging.”
The WDR Symphony Orchestra is known for premiering modern works and commissioned pieces. Kawahara accepts the challenge of modern music with a cool, professional sensibility, saying “With modern music it is very hard for a musician to judge if a piece is good or not. What is being produced is not always melody or harmony that we are used to. Sometimes it’s a lot of sound effects and the musicians onstage are like machines. I can’t always give a judgment, but as a bassist I am trying to get the most out of piece. That’s the only thing that I can do. I’m trying to find the hook that this music has. When I can find it, I latch onto it and try and develop it. Modern music requires a great deal of discipline.”
Sometimes, Kawahara encounters problems with modern composers who do not take their own work seriously enough to give the musicians clear notation and instructions. “Honestly, I get frustrated sometimes with certain modern music,” Kawahara says. “First of all it is a lot of work, just to learn the music. I know that it could be good music, but when the manuscript is hand-written and you see that the composer did not think about the player at all—well, I get angry about this. I recently played a trio piece from a very well-known composer. The notes were so poorly written, that it was almost impossible to read—he wasn’t thinking about the musicians. Because it was a trio—without a conductor obviously—and because the rhythm was so complicated, I had to memorize all three of the parts. I did so much work for the composer, and I would hope that he would do the same for me— at least meet me halfway.”
Kawahara sees a positive challenge, even when the composer does not understand the bass and what is comfortably playable. “Don’t complain that the composer does not understand the bass,” Kawahara says, “because sometimes he might bring you upon something that is musically very interesting. When the notes are hard, or when the composer does not understand the bass, you shouldn’t immediately complain or give up. Sometimes something beautiful comes out of that.”
Kawahara maintains that musicians must understand the period and spirit in which the music was written. Without trying to find the zeitgeist, musicians cannot understand the music that they are performing. “Today, there are more and more musicians who do not understand this phenomenon,” Kawahara says. “There are even well-know musicians who do not have this—they are somehow pushed from somewhere else, the media or somewhere. And they’re still successful, even though they do not completely understand the music.”
“The classical music scene is having a hard time at the moment,” Kawahara says. “It wasn’t always this way—it’s a change of the times. For example, jazz music was developed at a certain time, and it has hit a plateau—the same with classical music. It will, of course, live and thrive a long time, but not like it once did. It’s a shame. When a movement—even a small movement—is increasing, then it has a lot of energy. The stream is growing. When the flow of the stream is diminishing, it becomes powerless. This is the tendency at the moment in the classical world. Everyone tries new ideas, some of which seem to be working. In these times there’s a huge danger that the soul of the classical music is lost. People today have a hard time understanding the zeitgeist in classical music.”
Solo CDs von Yasunori Kawahara
The Miracle of the Double Bass
with Angéline Pondepeyre, Piano
Sony (Japan) SRCR 9952
Soul of Double Bass
with Rainer Hoffman, Piano
Largo 5146
Fantasy on Double Bass
with Rainer Hoffman, Piano
Largo 5123
Fauré, Saint-Saéns, Paganini, Koussevitzky, Guére, Vivaldi, Bottesini, Gounod, Mozart
with Rainer Hoffman, Piano
Largo 5105
With the WDR Symphony Orchestra (Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra)
ANTON BRUCKNER (1824-1896)
Sinfonien Nr. 1-9
Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Günter Wand
RCA Victor/WDR 1989 (ADD)
GUSTAV MAHLER (1860-1911)
Symphonies No. 1-10 und "Das Lied von der Erde"
Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Gary Bertini
with Krisztina Laki, Florence Quivar, Gwendolyn Killebrew, Lucia Popp, Julia Varady, Marjana Lipovšek;
Cologne Radio Choir, SDF Choir Stuttgart
EMI 2005/ produced by WDR 1984-91 (DDD)
DMITRIJ SCHOSTAKOWITSCH (1906-1975)
Symphony No. 11 g-moll op. 103
"The year 1905"
Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Semyon Bychkov
Made by WDR 2001 (DDD)
RICHARD STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Daphne
Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Semyon Bychkov
with Renée Fleming, Kwanchul Youn, Anna Larsson,
Michael Schade, Johan Botha, Eike Wilm Schulte and
Men of the WDR Radio Choir, Cologne
Decca/WDR 2005 (DDD)
