Composer Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Final Concert Opus
Via. Pitchfork
Last month, on September 5th, the final concert of the late composer Ryuichi Sakamoto premiered at the Venice Film Festival. The composer had passed away seven months prior at 71, following years of battling terminal cancer. The screening of his concert film Opus was 103 minutes long and served as the last showcase of the maestro’s career.
The black-and-white concert film featured Sakamoto playing twenty of his most renowned compositions, including his first film score for the war film Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence which won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Music in 1983, as well as handpicked selections from his meditative solo album 12 which he composed in 2022. The Oscar-winning movie scores he composed for Bernardo Bertolucci’s film The Last Emperor were also featured in the concert. His other works, such as The Wuthering Heights and Ichimei–Small Happiness, were presented as solo performances for the first time. All of the works were curated and placed in a specific order by the composer himself to narrate his life’s journey with music.
Back in late 2022, despite his failing health, the composer had taken it upon himself to head to NHK’s legendary 509 Studio in Shibuya, Tokyo, and film himself playing the pieces. Due to his illness, he was unable to play in front of a live audience. However, according to his son Neo Sora, who had directed the film, Sakamoto still wanted to “leave something before he couldn’t play any longer.” The entire filming process took nine days, with the composer filming an average of three pieces per day within an impressive one to three takes.
On the morning of September 5th, Venice Film Festival audience members were met with the touching sight of the composer alone on stage with only his Yamaha grand piano. They were the first ones to witness the composer’s final performance. The North American premiere took place at the New York Film Festival on October 11th and 12th, while the theatrical distribution of the film was sold to more than ten countries, including North America, South Korea, Spain, Germany, China, and Singapore.
This was not the first time Sakamoto had performed in Venice. Six years prior, in 2017, his film score “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda,” composed for the BAFTA-award-winning film The Revenant, had also premiered at the venue. Thus, Opus served as a bittersweet sequel to complete the circle.
Just as Ryuichi Sakamoto’s music career ended with the piano, it had also begun with the piano. After graduating from the prestigious Tokyo National University of Fine Arts, Sakamoto worked with two friends to found the electronic pop band Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978 and worked as the band’s keyboardist to produce top-charting albums. Their most popular single, and the single that truly launched Sakamoto’s career, was Tong Poo (1978). Within a few years, the band quickly established its influence in the field of electronic music, shaping the development of J-pop, synthpop, and other music genres in early-80’s Japan.
During this time, Sakamoto also composed his debut solo album, Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto (1978). Afterward, he experimented with other forms of music and collaborated with numerous international artists, such as David Sylvian and Kiyoshiro Imawana, to compose numerous chart-topping singles.
However, arguably, Sakamoto’s most famous works may not have been his singles but his film scores. Throughout his 35-year career, the artist composed nearly 50 film scores, with the most notable being Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983) and Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (1987). Both film scores won him highly esteemed awards and helped to establish Sakamoto as a prominent figure within the music industry. Sakamoto’s impeccable sense of musical direction and his ability to convey intense emotions while staying true to the thematic contexts of the films captured the hearts of thousands of viewers alike. As a symbol of his massive contributions to the composing world, Sakamoto won an Oscar, a Grammy, a BAFTA, and two Golden Globe Awards through his film scores alone.
Sakamoto continued to produce more songs into the 1990’s and 2000’s. His composition for the opening ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics furthered his fame internationally, and shortly after, he composed “Energy Flow” (1999), which earned him the title of the first instrumental number-one single on Japan’s Oricon chart.
After being diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014, Sakamoto underwent intense chemotherapy before creating what he believed would be his final work. “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda” was the film score he composed for Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s film The Revenant. The soundtrack is now acclaimed to be “one of the best film scores of the 21st century”.
Ryuichi Sakamoto was a man who dedicated his life to music. This is evident, as even in his final years, he was pushing his physical limits to perform the music he loved to his audience. The result is a hauntingly beautiful piece of work that presents art in its purest form.
Opus is a film that portrays the intimate intertwining of human performers and mechanical instruments, blending seamlessly to produce sound. It is devoid of words yet full of emotion. Fitting for a man who believed the piano to be an extension of his hands, Sakamoto’s great talent and firm devotion to his craft is delivered clearly through the screen; he plays slow but with care and precision as if wanting each chord to strike through the heart of the viewer. He is not just playing the song as much as he is performing it through all five senses.
Opus is Sakamoto’s parting gift to the world, his humble offering of his entire life’s work. It is a reminder to all that while humanity and nature are fleeting, music can be captured and preserved forever.
“Even so, I feel relieved that I was able to record before my death – a performance that I was satisfied with.” - Ryuichi Sakamoto