Joe Hisaishi: Songs of Hope: The Essential Joe Hisaishi Vol. 2
Decca Gold

All of the things that made last year's Dream Songs: The Essential Joe Hisaishi Vol. 1 so beloved are again present on the double-CD second volume. There are many reasons why Studio Ghibli's films are embraced with such fervour, but a key one is certainly the music he's created for so many of them. A major part of the first volume was dedicated to Studio Ghibli projects and that carries over to the second volume, with works from Hana-Bi, Porco Rosso, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke appearing alongside other material. Pieces Hisaishi wrote for the films of Takeshi Kitano, Nobuhiko Obayashi, Yojiro Takita, Shinichiro Sawai, and Yoji Yamada are also included.

There's no shortage of material from which to select. Hisaishi's output comprises nearly 100 film scores and solo albums, and to date he's scored all but one of Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli films. His achievements have been recognized, too: an eight-time winner of the Japanese Academy Award for Best Music, he was awarded the Japan Medal of Honour in 2009. A command of multiple genres informs his composing, with classical music, pop, American minimalism, and electronic music among the sources he draws upon for his works.

One of the second volume's major draws is its inclusion of both sweeping orchestral works and solo piano recordings, with the intimacy of the latter offsetting the symphonic drama of the former. Adding to the set's appeal, the gamut of human emotion is encompassed, with joy and sadness present in equal measure. Melody is paramount in a Hisaishi composition, and the twenty-eight selections provide a sterling account of the Japanese composer's artistry and his inimitable gift for melody.

An overview of the content shows how diverse it is. Animated by a gently swinging pulse and an arrangement featuring acoustic guitar, “ANGEL DOLL” introduces the set on a cozily inviting note, after which “la pioggia” intermittently borrows from Mahler's Fifth Symphony “Adagietto” as it relaxes into its own piano-led symphonic soundworld. “il porco rosso” flirts with a kind of MOR-styled piano jazz in the way it wraps its piano melodies in strings before morphing into a flugelhorn-led jazz orchestra ballad. Performed by The London Symphony Orchestra, pulsing rhythms and mallet instrument patterns in “DA-MA-SHI-E” (1985) instantly announce the influence of minimalism as practiced by John Adams and Reich in their early works. Performances by other orchestras also appear on the release, including ones by the Kansai Philharmonic, Tokyo City Philharmonic, and the New Japan Philharmonic World Dream Orchestra.

Hisaishi's melodic signature permeates every moment of the mournful “TWO OF US,” which pairs the composer on piano with Alexander Balanescu on violin and Nick Holland on cello, and the same could be said for “The Rain,” during which Hisaishi's joined by violinist Rieko Suzuki, cellist Yumiko Morooka, and the Yin Lin Pan Strings. The lovely cello-and-piano duet “Departures -memory-” exudes all the graceful ache of which a Hisaishi piece is capable, as does “Ashitaka and San,” which plays at the end of Princess Mononoke. Having marimbas introduce the joyful melodies for “Summer” makes it all the more delightful, though its mellifluous quality in no way diminishes when it blossoms into a full orchestra arrangement.

The melancholy piano settings “Rain Garden” and “Nocturne” nod to Satie and Chopin, respectively, while a hint of Piazzolla seeps into “Tango X.T.C.” No piece, however, is perhaps as touching as “Friends,” which, presented in a piano-only arrangement, reflects its creator's gift for translating emotion into sound; that Hisaishi is the pianist on these and the other solo pieces personalizes the recording all the more. If there's an outlier here, it's “DEAD for Strings, Perc., Harp & Piano 1. D.e.a.d.” for the music's atonal character, with apparently the music of the Second Viennese School an influence.

September 2021