HAYASAKA, Fumio

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Composer. Nationality: Japanese. Born: Sendai-City, 19 August 1914. Education: Attended Hokkai School; studied with Alexander Tcherepnin in Tokyo. Career: Organist at Yamahana Catholic Church, Sapporo; English teacher at Kosei and other schools; 1939—joined Toho company as composer; nonfilm music includes a piano concerto and Yukara suite; taught film scoring in a college: students include Masaru Sato and Toru Takemitsu. Died: Of tuberculosis, in Tokyo, 15 October 1955.

Films as Composer:

1939

Ribon o musubu fujin (A Lady with a Ribbon) (Yamamoto)

1940

Kaigun bakugekitai (The Naval Bomber Fleet) (Kimura); Nyan-nyan-myan-hoi (Festival of Nyan-nyan-myan) (Akutagawa); Ina-bushi (The Ina Song) (Kamei); Kikansha C-57 (Steam Locomotive C-57) (Imaizumi); Moyuru oozora (Flaming Sky) (Abe); Tabi yakusha (Traveling Actors) (Naruse)

1941

Shirasagi (Snowy Heron) (Shimazu); Gubijinso (Poppy) (Nakagawa); Shido monogatari (Instructive Story) (Kumagai); Wakai sensei (A Young Teacher) (Sato)

1942

Midori no daichi (The Green Earth) (Shimazu); Nankai no hanatabe (South Seas Bouquet) (Abe); Haha no chizu (Mother's Map) (Shimazu); Koharu kyogen (Koharu's Performance) (Aoyagi)

1944

Ano hata o ute (Fire the Flag!) (Abe)

1945

Nippon kengo-den (Great Swordsmen of Japan) (Takizawa); Kita no sannin (The Three Men of the North) (Saeki)

1946

Minshu no teki (An Enemy of the People) (Imai)

1947

Inochi aru kagiri (As Long as We Live) (Kusuda); Yottsu no koi no monogatari (Four Love Stories) (Toyoda and others); Chikagai 24-jikan (24 Hours in an Underground Market) (Imai); Kakedashi jidai (Tenderfoot Days) (Saeki); Ai yo hoshi to tomoni (Love, Live with the Stars) (Abe); Koisuru tsuma (A Wife in Love) (Hagiwara); Joyu (Actress) (Kinugasa)

1948

Hana hiraku (A Flower Blooms) (Ichikawa); Yoidore tenshi (Drunken Angel) (Kurosawa); Waga ai wa yama no kanata ni (My Love Is beyond the Mountain) (Toyoda); Ama no yugao (Evening Glory of Heaven) (Abe); Fuji sancho (The Summit of Mount Fuji) (Saeki); Ten no yugao (Moonflower of Heaven) (Abe); Ikiteiru gazo (Living Portrait) (Chiba); Niji o idaku shojo (A Virgin Who Embraces a Rainbow) (Saeki)

1949

Haru no tawamure (Spring Caprice) (Yamamoto); Nozomi naki ni arazu (Hope Is Not Dead Yet) (Saeki); Tobisuke boken ryoko (Tobisuke's Adventures) (Nakagawa); Nora inu (Stray Dog) (Kurosawa)

1950

Akatsuki no dasso (Escape at Dawn) (Taniguchi); Shikko yuyo (Reprieve) (Saburi); Shubun (Scandal) (Kurosawa); Sasameyuki (The Makioka Sisters) (Abe); Rashomon (Kurosawa); Tsuma to onna kisha (Wife and Woman Journalist) (Chiba); Yuki Fujin ezu (A Picture of Madame Yuki) (Mizoguchi); Jodai no chokoku (Comical Sculpture) (Mizuki—short)

1951

Hakuchi (The Idiot) (Kurosawa); Nessa no byakuran (White Orchid of the Heating Desert) (Kimura); Oyu-sama (Miss Uyo) (Mizoguchi); Sono hito no na wa ienai (I Cannot Say That Person's Name) (Sugie); Musashino Fujin (Lady Musashin) (Mizoguchi); Shi no dangai (Death Cliff) (Taniguchi); Meshi (Repast) (Naruse); Bakuro ichidai (Life of a Horse Dealer) (Kimura)

1952

Dokoku (Wail) (Saburi); Ikiru (Living) (Kurosawa); Jinsei gekijo (Theatre of Life) (Saburi)

1953

Ugetsu monogatari (Ugetsu) (Mizoguchi); Sakai (Meeting Again) (Kimura)

1954

Hanran (Rebellion) (Saburi); Sansho dayu (Sansho the Bailiff) (Mizoguchi); Shichinin no samurai (Seven Samurai) (Kurosawa); Kimi shinitamau koto nakare (You Shouldn't Die) (Maruyama); Sen-hime (Lady Sen) (Kimura); Chikamatsu monogatari (A Story from Chikamatsu; Crucified Lovers) (Mizoguchi); Mitsuyu-sen (Smuggling Ship) (Sugie)

1955

Yokihi (The Princess Yan Kwei-fei) (Mizoguchi); Shin heike monogatari (New Tales of the Taira Clan) (Mizoguchi); Asunaro monogatari (Growing Up) (Horikawa); Ikomono no kiroku (Record of a Living Being; I Live in Fear) (Kurosawa) (completed by Sato)

Publications

On HAYASAKA: article—

Chaplin (Stockholm), April-May 1965.

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Fumio Hayasaka is among the most respected of Japanese composers. Beginning in the late 1930s he has worked for noted directors including Mikio Naruse, Yasujiro Shimazu, Tadashi Imai, Teinosuke Kinugasa, and Kon Ichikawa. However, he is most famous for his work for Kenji Mizoguchi and Akira Kurosawa.

Combining Japanese traditional instruments with Western instruments, Hayasaka wrote mysterious, stylized scores for Mizoguchi's Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff, and A Story from Chikamatsu. Interested in a wide variety of styles, he nonetheless sought to create a uniquely Japanese style of film music.

His collaboration with Kurosawa began in the late 1940s with Drunken Angel, and the two artists soon found each other indispensable. Their association continued in a spirit of mutual appreciation and respect until Hayasaka's death during the production of Record of a Living Being in 1955.

Kurosawa and Hayasaka both believed that film music should not always work to enhance the mood or the dramatic highlights of a scene, and that unexpected combinations of music and visual images would create more interesting effects. For instance, the lively spirit of the "Cuckoo Waltz" heard from a loudspeaker on a street in the black-market area starkly contrasts with the depressed psychological state of the hero of Drunken Angel. In Stray Dog the sound of a housewife practising piano is heard during the suspenseful confrontation of the criminal and the detective, and a children's song is heard in the scene of the criminal's arrest.

Hayasaka's bolero music for Rashomon is also uniquely effective. This theme music is used as a leitmotif, associated with the appearance of certain characters, and contrasts with the styles used in other scenes. Similarly, in Seven Samurai Hayasaka created powerful and emotional theme music for the samurai themselves, with more lyrical music used for the scenes of lovers and ominously rhythmical music for the battle scenes. The composer planned each of his scores by meticulously analyzing the structure and the mood of each scene. His constant experimentation, and his search to create a unique effect in each scene, won him wide acclaim.

—Kyoko Hirano