SEIJI OZAWA WINS A GRAMMY

Seiji Ozawa Wins a Grammy

Conductor Seiji Ozawa was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording at a ceremony in Los Angeles this past Monday, February 15 — his first such award in eight nominations. The winning recording is an album of Maurice Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortileges, performed by the Saito Kinen Orchestra as well as a local children’s choir, under his direction, in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, and recorded in August of 2013.

Maestro Ozawa has considered Matsumoto his “home base” since 1992 when, in an effort to merge all-Japanese orchestras with international artists, he and Kazuyoshi Akiyama founded the Saito Kinen Foundation. In fact, the orchestra saw its beginning in September of 1984 when Ozawa and Akiyama brought together a group of Japanese musicians from all over the world to perform in a series of concerts in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the death of Hideo Saito, the co-founder of the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyō (a pioneer in offering university-level degrees in music in Japan) and a mentor to the conductors and musicians — which the agreed to do for free. In 1987 the orchestra made its first tour of Europe, playing in Vienna, Berlin, Frankfurt, Paris, and London. In fact, the orchestra has no regular members and is formed anew annually. Despite that, in 2008, the Orchestra was voted the world's 19^th greatest orchestra by a panel of critics assembled by Gramophone Magazine.

 In a brief statement, Mr. Ozawa said, "I am happy and proud of crating the music work together with fellow musicians. I want to share the joy with them."

L'enfant et les sortilèges: Fantaisie lyrique en deux parties (The Child and the Spells: A Lyric Fantasy in Two Parts) is an opera with music by Maurice Ravel and libretto by French novelist Colette. It is Ravel's second opera, his first being L’heure espagnole. Written from 1917 to 1925, L'enfant et les sortilèges was first performed in Monte Carlo in 1925 under the baton of Victor de Sabata.

As a sidelight, it is interesting to note that after being offered the opportunity to write a musical work, Colette jumped at the opportunity and completed the text in only eight days. Several composers to write the music had been suggested to her; however, she would only agree to Ravel.

The story is one of a rude child who is reprimanded by various objects in his room which he has been destroying. After being scolded by his mother in the beginning of the opera, the child throws a tantrum, destroying the room around him. He is then surprised to find that the unhappy objects in his room come to life. The furniture and decorations indeed begin to talk to him — even his homework takes shape as it becomes an old man and a chorus of numbers.

In Part 2, the bedroom becomes a garden filled with singing animals and plants which have been tortured by the child as well. The child attempts to make friends with the animals and plants, but they reject him because of the injuries he did to them previously, before they could talk. They abandon him, and in his loneliness, he eventually cries out "Maman" (“Mother” or “Mommy”). At this, the animals turn on him and attack him, but in the course of the violence, the animals wind up bumping, butting, and fighting among each other and the child is pushed aside. The end result is that a squirrel is hurt, which in turn causes the other animals to stop fighting. The child then bandages the squirrel and then collapses exhausted. The animals have a change of heart, and decide to try to help the little boy home. They carry him back to his house, and sing in praise of the child. The opera ends with the child singing "Maman", as he greets his mother, in the very last measure of the score.

(Photo courtesy of Medici TV)