＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
<Added 5/2/2024> Fujiko Hemming passed away on April 21st at the age of 92.
Fujiko Hemming, the pianist known for “Campanella of Miracles,” passed away on April 21st. She was 92 years old. The Fujiko Hemming Foundation announced this on its official website on the 2nd. The funeral was held among close relatives.
My father loved film music and collected records such as “The Complete European Film Music” and “The Complete American Film Music,” so I used to listen to them a lot. My older sister loved classical music, film music, and pop, so I often listened to classical music by Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, and others, as well as records like “West Side Story,” “The Sound of Music,” and “Rhythm of the Rain.”
After entering the workforce, I bought up records of Beethoven conducted by Karajan, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Chopin, Vivaldi, and others.
I particularly liked the performance by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karajan, which was powerful, crisp, and well-balanced compared to performances by other conductors.
Among these, the one I listened to in a record store was Fujiko Hemming’s CD of “Campanella of Miracles,” and immediately decided to buy it.
1. Fujiko Hemming (1932-2014)
I was blown away the first time I listened to her recordings. She’s been called a “pianist of soul,” and I was truly captivated by her soul-shouting tone and powerful performance.
She was born in Berlin, half Russian and half Swedish, and her mother was a Japanese pianist.
She was hailed as a “child prodigy” from elementary school onward, but her early life wasn’t always smooth sailing.
Her father, unable to adapt to life in Japan, returned to Sweden, leaving his wife and two children behind. As a result, she was stateless for a long time (she now holds Swedish citizenship) and suffered the misfortune of losing hearing in her right ear due to otitis media at the age of 16. However, after a long struggle, she secured a contract as a soloist with Bruno Maderna at the age of 35.
However, just before a recital in Vienna, she caught a cold and lost hearing in her left ear as well. Although he performed at the first recital despite being deaf, the results were disastrous and all performances from the following day onwards were cancelled.
As a musician, being blind, like Nobuyuki Tsujii, is a great handicap, but losing her hearing is an even greater one.
Even so, while receiving ear treatment in Germany, she continued to play the piano, obtained a piano teaching qualification, and continued to perform on a modest scale.
She was still an unknown pianist in her 60s, but her name quickly spread to the public after an NHK documentary about her turbulent life was broadcast in 1999.
She has now reportedly recovered 40% of her left ear.
She is said to play at a slower tempo and make more mistakes than other pianists, but for some reason her performances resonate with the heart. On karaoke battle shows, an amateur with a good voice and accurate pitch, but whose singing doesn’t resonate with the heart, sometimes scores higher than a professional singer. This is because karaoke machines cannot read the heart of the song.
She has said, “I make a lot of mistakes. I don’t try to correct them. It’s foolish to criticize,” and “It’s fine if there are bells that look like they might break. They’re not machines.”
As a child, she apparently received a strict education in piano playing from her mother, who was a pianist. This sounds somewhat similar to Beethoven’s childhood.
2. Nobuyuki Tsujii (1988-present)
Although he was born blind, he possessed natural musical talent and began serious piano studies at a young age. At age seven, he won first place in the piano division of the All-Japan Music Competition for Blind Students. At age ten, he made a stunning debut performing with the Osaka Century Symphony Orchestra at the Shigeaki Saegusa Special Concert.
His remarkable career, including his first solo recital at age 12 at Suntory Hall, is well known through television programs and other media. In 2007, at age 20, he became a producer.
By the way, because he is completely blind, he must memorize all of his long scores, which presents challenges beyond the imagination of ordinary people.
While it’s said that in “contemporary music” contests, participants are allowed to look at the score, Tsujii must memorize everything, which is a considerable handicap.
He has overcome such difficulties and achieved great success, so it’s no wonder that he is called a “genius” and a “miracle pianist.”
I’m not that knowledgeable about music, but I think what’s great about him is that he “interprets the music as the composer intended” and “performs the way the composer wanted him to express it,” just like how genius singers like Misora Hibari and Teresa Teng beautifully express the heart of a song.