Joe Hisaishi: Dream Songs: The Essential Joe Hisaishi
Decca Gold

To these ears, the soundtracks Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi created for Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli classics Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, and Kiki's Delivery Service are so indissolubly bound up in their reception, it's hard to think of the music as a separate entity. To that end, Dream Songs: The Essential Joe Hisaishi does a superb job of enabling admirers to do precisely that by presenting his musical artistry sans visual accompaniment. In assembling a diverse selection of twenty-eight pieces spanning his nearly forty-year career, the release is a must-have for those already familiar with Hisaishi and those discovering him anew.

The Nagano-born composer initiated his relationship with Miyazaki in 1984 with the score for Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and followed it with ones for My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), Spirited Away (2002), Howl's Moving Castle (2005), The Wind Rises (2013), and others. Hisaishi has created work for other directors, too, including Departures (2008) and The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013) for Yojiro Takita and Isao Takahata, respectively, each accounted for on the Dream Songs release. Enhancing his reputation as a film composer, Hisaishi is also well-known as a concert performer, be it piano soloist or orchestra conductor, and contemporary composer, with works such as Contrabass Concerto (2015) and The East Land Symphony (2016) to his credit.

The material on Dream Songs captures his deft fusion of classical, in its European, American, and Japanese forms, with pop song-based melodies. No better choice of opener could have been made than “One Summer's Day" (from Spirited Away). Four minutes of uplifting splendour, Hisaishi's harmonious reverie augments elegant piano melodies with luscious orchestration in this fine example of the composer's artistry. A more playful side surfaces in “Kiki's Delivery Service,” particularly in the way it couples violin and piano in an impish dance, the music taking breezy flight in a way that calls to mind the titular character soaring through the sky on her broom.

Each piece has something that distinguishes it from the others, and contrast is plentiful. During “Summer,” Hisaishi strengthens the sunny mood by having strings play pizzicato; percussion, on the other hand, is understandably accentuated in “The Procession of Celestial Beings” (from The Tale of Princess Kaguya). While many pieces are fully orchestrated, some are less ornate, the collection even making generous room in volume two for solo piano settings, including the expansive “Fantasia (for Nausicaä),” dramatic “The Wind Forest,” and bluesy “Ballade.”

Moods extend panoramically from solemn and wistful to light-hearted and playful, the latter instantiated emphatically in “Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea.” Balancing a high-spirited setting such as “Madness,” an adventurous thrill-ride whose insistent rhythms suggest danger close at hand, are those of a melancholy bent, the heartfelt “il Porco Rosso,” “Nostalgia,” and “Innocent” three examples of many; prettiness likewise abounds in “Angel Springs” and “Birthday.” Whereas the wide-ranging symphonic set-pieces “Oriental Wind” and “Princess Mononoke Suite” would appeal to John Williams fans, the radiant ballad “Silent Love” could conceivably charm New Age and electro-pop lovers alike.

July 2020