Iacobus Leodiensis [Iacobus de Montibus, Iacobus de Oudenaerde]

Iribarren, Juan Francés de.

See Francés de Iribarren, Juan.

Irino, Yoshirō

(b Vladivostok, 13 Nov 1921; d Tokyo, 23 June 1980). Japanese composer. In 1927 his family returned to Japan, where Irino studied economics at Tokyo University (1941–3), while playing the clarinet in a student orchestra and studying composition privately with Saburō Moroi. After graduation he worked at the Bank of Tokyo and briefly served in the navy, but in 1946 he made composing his profession, joining the Shinsei Kai group which he organized with Minao Shibata and Kunio Toda. He took second prize at the Mainichi Music Competitions of 1948 and 1949, and won the newly-founded Mainichi Music Prize in 1949, 1950 and 1954. From 1949 to 1954 he worked as a music editor for the publishing house Tokyo Ongaku Shoin, and he taught at the Tōhō Gakuen School of Music, where he was appointed lecturer (1952), assistant professor (1955), professor (1959) and director (1960). The school became a college in 1961 and Irino continued as director until 1970; in 1973 he was appointed professor of composition at the Tokyo College of Music.

Meanwhile Irino continued to receive many prizes, including the German Ambassador's Prize (1957 and 1959), the Otaka Prize (1958 and 1959) and the Italia Prize (1958). In 1957 he organized the Institute of Twentieth Century Music and started the annual festival for contemporary music with fellow composers. He received a French government scholarship in 1962 and visited Europe and the USA frequently thereafter; in summer 1968 he was visiting professor at the University of Hawaii. In 1967 he helped organize the Japanese-German Festival for New Music and at the same time he became chief administrator of the Amis de la Musique de 20ème Siècle, which sponsored a series of concerts. In 1972 he founded Japan Music Life, an association for the promotion of various musical activities in Japan, and in 1973 he took a group of musicians to Europe, the USA and Canada to perform traditional and contemporary Japanese music. He was made an honorary member of the Asian Composers’ League in 1974.

Irino's early works, the orchestral and chamber pieces of before 1950, reveal a certain stylistic influence from late Romanticism, but his interests quickly turned to atonality. He made his first attempt at serial writing in the String Sextet (1950) and at 12-note serialism in the Concerto da camera for seven instruments (1951). The Sinfonietta (1953) combines Schoenbergian 12-note serial techniques with a Blacher-like organic rhythmic structure. These and other works distinguished him as the first Japanese to use 12-note methods as his major tool, and at the same time he applied his comprehensive knowledge of the music of the past in such works as the Concerto grosso (1957), Ricercari for chamber orchestra (1954) and the Divertimento for seven wind instruments (1958), all within atonal idioms.

Although he has written some choral works, Irino is primarily a composer of instrumental music, particularly for orchestra or chamber ensemble. In deploying such forces he displays a sensitive treatment of each instrumental timbre according to strict structures of his own devising. He has experimented with unusual combinations, as in the Suite for jazz ensemble (1960) and the Quintet for clarinet, alto saxophone, trumpet, piano and violin (1958), and quickly took an interest in traditional Japanese instruments, writing the Music for Two Koto as early as 1957. It was not, however, until after 1966 that he began a more serious attempt at combining the idioms of traditional Japanese music with his own atonal and serial style, an attempt made, for example, in the Three Movements for two koto and jūshichigen (1966) and Wandlungen for two shakuhachi and orchestra (1973, commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation). The Irino Prize, established a year after his death, encourages the activities of young composers.

WORKS

(selective list)

operas

broadcast by NHK unless otherwise stated

Kamisama ni shikarareta otoko [The Man in Fear of God] (radio operetta, N. Uno, after S. Komada), 25 May 1954

Fuefuki to Ryūō no musumetachi [The Piper and the Dragon King's Daughters] (radio op, M. Takeuchi), 1959

Sarudon no mukoiri [The Marriage of Mr Monkey] (radio op, M. Yokomichi, after I. Wakabayashi), 26 Nov 1961, staged, Tokyo, Metropolitan Festival Hall, 15 March 1962 [pt 2 of Mittsuno mukashiko (Three Old Tales), pt 1 by Moroi, pt 3 by Shimizu]

Aya no tsuzumi [The Damask Drum] (TV op, H. Mizuno, after a nō play), 9 Aug 1962, staged, Tokyo, Yūbin Chokin Hall, 26 March 1975

Sonezaki shinjū [The Lovers' Suicide at Sonezaki] (chbr op, after M. Chikamatsu), Osaka, Morinomiya Pirot Hall, 10 April 1980

dramatic and vocal

Dramatic: Wasurerareta jinsei [A Life which I had Forgotten] (radio drama), Tokyo, 1958; Hontō no sorairo [The Real Blue Sky] (radio drama), Tokyo, 1963; Hiren [Secret Love] (dance drama), Osaka, 1964; Koganegumo [The Golden Spider] (radio score), Tokyo, 1964; Kurishna no fue [Flute of Krishna], 1v, chbr orch, Tokyo, 1965; Bonnen (dance drama), Tokyo, 1966; Honoo [Fire] (dance drama), Tokyo, 1966; Globus III, vn, vc, pf, hp, Jap. insts, 2 dancers, 1975

Vocal: Iwa [Rock], male chorus, 1958; Shiroi hako [White Box], chorus, 1959; 3 Pieces, male chorus, 1960; 3 Pieces, female chorus, 1960; Kōru niwa [Frozen Garden], chorus, 1961; Byakuya [White Night], S, pf, 1966; Fuji san [Mount Fuji], male chorus, 1966; Oni no yomesan [Devil's Bride], chorus, 1970; Hyōdan, S, T, hpd, kayago, 1977; Ps cxxxi, female v, pf, 1978

instrumental

Orch: Concert Ov., 1948; Sym., 1948; Sinfonietta, small orch, 1953; Ricercari, chbr orch, 1954; Double Conc., vn, pf, orch, 1955; Conc. grosso, 1957; Sinfonia, 1959; Conc., str, 1960; Suite, jazz ens, 1960; Music for Hpd, Perc, 19 Str, 1963; Sym. no.2, 1964; Sai un [Coloured Clouds], 15 str, 1972; Wandlungen, 2 shakuhachi, orch, 1973

Chbr: Str Qt, 1945; Pf Trio, 1948; Str Sextet, 1950; Conc. da camera, 7 insts, 1951; Str Qt no.2, 1957; Qnt, cl, a sax, tpt, pf, vn, 1958; Divertimento, 7 wind, 1958; Str Trio, 1965; 3 Movts, 2 koto, jūshichigen, 1966; Trio '70 for H.R.S., 1970; Sonata, 4 insts, 1970; Globus I, hn, perc, 1971; Globus II, mar, db, perc, 1971; Three Scenes, 3 koto, 1972; Strömung, fl, hp, perc, 1973; Shōyō, Jap. insts, 1973; Klänge, perc, 1976; Cosmos, vn, pf, shakuhachi, 2 koto, perc, 1978

1–2 insts: Music for 2 Koto, 1957; Music for Vn, Pf, 1957; 3 Pf Pieces, 1958; Music for Vn, Vc, 1959; Music for Vib, Pf, 1961; Music for 2 Pf, 1963; Sonata, vn, pf, 1967; Duo concertante, shakuhachi, koto, 1969; 2 Fantasies, nijūgen, jūshichigen, 1969; 3 Movts, vc, 1969; 2 Phrases, koto, 1971; Suite, va, 1971; Five Days, vn, va, 1972; 3 Improvisations, fl, 1972; Movement, mar, 1977

Principal publisher: Ongaku-no-Tomo Sha

WRITINGS

Jūnion no ongaku [Music of 12 tones] (Tokyo, 1953)

Waseigaku [Harmony] (Tokyo, 1974)

trans. of works by H. Erpf, E. Karkoschka, R. Leibowitz, F. Prieberg, J. Rufer, H. Wörner

BIBLIOGRAPHY

K. Akiyama: Nihon no sakkyokuka-tachi [Japanese composers], ii (Tokyo, 1979)

K. Akiyama and K. Toda: ‘Sakkyokuka Irino Yoshirō iku’ [The composer Irino gone], Ongakugeijutsu, xxxviii/8 (1980), 5–12, 44–7 [incl. list of works]

K. Hori, ed.: Nihon no sakkyoku nijusseiki [Japanese compositions in the 20th century] (Tokyo, 1999)

MASAKATA KANAZAWA