AKIRAIFUKUBE.ORG - Eclogues After Epos Among Aino Races

ECLOGUES AFTER EPOS
AMONG AINO RACES
(1956)

Two Ainu men from the island of Sakhalin

The Ainu are an ethnic group indigenous to Hokkaido, the Kuril Islands, much of Sakhalin, and the southernmost third of the Kamchatka peninsula. The word "ainu" means "human" in the Ainu language. There are most likely over 150,000 Ainu today, however the exact figure is not known as many Ainu hide their origins or in many cases are not even aware of them, their parents having kept it from them so as to protect their children from racism.

The origins of the Ainu are uncertain. Some commentators believe that they derive from an ancient proto-Mongoloid stock that may have occupied most of Central and East Asia before the Han expansion. Various other Mongoloid indigenous peoples, from the Ryukyus to the Taiwanese are also thought to be related to them.

Akira Ifukube spent his boyhood in the remote village of Otofuke, Hokkaido and was very well acquainted with the music and customs of the Ainu.

Eclogues After Epos Among Aino Races was composed as a "free memory" (words of the composer) of Ainu singing voices which were "printed" in his mind. The text is based on phrases collected by Masahiko Chiri.

The first piece is a memory of shinotcha, one of the improvisational song forms. The second one is yaishama ne na and the third is a scene of Ainu singing various songs.

The meaning if shinotcha is music of solace or diversion. The singer begins to to sing with meaningless words while looking for the subject of the song. Once the subject is chosen, the singer continues to sing improvisationally to express his or her state of mind. Like shinotcha, yaishama NE NA is a form that expresses the singer's state of mind and the singer must repeat the phrase "yaishama NE NA".

Eclogues After Epos Among Aino Races is a chamber work for solo vocalist (soprano) and four kettle drums.

Please use your browser's BACK button to return to the Music Library

Acknowledgments:

Akira Ifukube: Anthology of Vox Principle Works by Motohide Katayama.