© 2000 Lawrence Tuczynski

Title	Music for the Stage Volume 3
CD Label	VAP Inc.
CD Number	VPCD-81155
Music by:	Akira Ifukube
Number of tracks	20
Running time	48:04
Number of discs	1
Year of release/manufacture	1996

REVIEW

March 10, 2000 Volume 3 here, is the shortest of the four volumes in this CD series. It's shortest both in time and number of tracks. That may not be a bad thing since Vol. 3 sounds very similar to Volumes 1 & 2. The disc is mainly made up of slow paced chorale type music just like the first two volumes. Hopefully when I get the translations of the track titles maybe I can tell a little more about these discs.

English Title: Music for the Stage by Akira Ifukube, Volume 3 Japanese Title: Ifukube Akira Butai Ongaku Zenshu Daisanshu: [Virgin Snow on Nanbuzaka *1 (from "Chushingura")] (1976) 1. Prologue, Part 1: "The Pine Corridor Prelude" 2. The Pine Corridor 3. Prologue, Part 2: "The Garden at Ukyodayu Tamura's Mansion" 4. "More Fragile than Flowers Scattered by the Wind" *2 5. Prologue, Part 3: Sengakuji Temple - Castle of the Dead 6. Scene I: Yozenin's Sitting Room 7. Yozenin and Kuranosuke Oishi 8. Scene II: The Asano Family: In Front of the Gate ??Finale [The Last Shogun, Yoshinobu Tokugawa *3] 9. Act I, Scene I: Outside the Sakurada Gate 10. Ii's Neck ? End of Scene I 11. Scene II: Inside the Hitotsubashi Mansion 12. Act II, Scene II: On the Deck of the Jundomaru *4 13. End of Scene II 14. Act III, Scene I: The Highway on the Outskirts of Myohoin Temple 15. "A World Mired in Chaos" 16. Scene II: Seirenin-no-miya's Mansion 17. Act IV, Scene I: The Fushimi Highway 18. Scene II: A Room Inside Chiyoda Castle 19. Scene IV: The Great Vestibule in Chiyoda Castle 20. Finale *1 The IMDb does not offer an English title for this work, the Japanese name of which is "Shinsetsu Nanbuzaka". *2 A verse from a poem by Asano Takuminokami. *3 The IMDb does not offer an English title for this work, the Japanese name of which is "Saigo no Shogun: Tokugawa Yoshinobu". *4 The name of a ship.