Ryuichi Sakamoto - Opus

Resident Advisor

In the autumn of 2022, Ryuichi Sakamoto sat down in front of a Yamaha Grand in Tokyo's 509 recording studio, a large room said to contain the best acoustics in ..

A Closer Listen

No-one can do simplicity as beautifully as Ryuichi Sakamoto. Over the course of his career he crafted countless melodies that managed to sound timeless and wholly original at once.

His gift for creating music is lovingly documented on Opus, the aptly named final album from the Japanese master.

A greatest hits album of sorts, Opus is also a concert film directed by Sakamoto’s son Neo Sora. The project is haunted by the awareness of Sakamoto’s mortality. He passed away from a long battle with cancer mere months after the film’s release late last year at the age of 71. Both the album and the film refuse to shy away from the reality of performance. The sound of the piano’s pedal is audible throughout, as are Sakamoto’s breathing and the occasional murmur of exhaustion. The gesture recalled last year’s 12, an album in which Sakamoto aggressively foregrounded the other sounds of music—the room in which it is performed, the heavy breathing of belabored performance—in a stripped down set of piano pieces.

Filmed in beautiful black and white, Opus showcases Sakamoto’s recent quest to use his art to document the incomprehensible relationship between mastery and mortality.

Although film of course adds another layer of meaning and pathos to the music, the album on its own is almost unendingly moving.

Sakamoto was a perfectionist, bringing the same attention to the minimalist solo piano work for which he would become the most known in his later career, as he brought to the intricate excess of his early days in experimental techno-pop band Yellow Magic Orchestra. Throughout his career he towed the line between the outer edges of music and its very center, composing music that was remarkably accessible even through experimentation.

On Opus it’s just Sakamoto and his piano. The essence of musicianship. A reminder that creativity is a lonely process. And this is lonely music, heavily indebted to musical heroes such as Satie, Chopin, and Debussy. His slow minimalist melodies have an aching quality. They are very much here, present, but they capture a yearning towards somewhere else.

Although primarily comprised of arrangements of his greatest hits, music from films such as Babel, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, and The Sheltering Sky, and many of his works for solo piano released on albums over the last thirty years, Opus does feature several new tracks. “For Johan” is a tribute to another late composer, Johann Johannson and “BB” is dedicated to the film director Bernardo Bertolucci, with whom Sakaomoto worked on the score for The Last Emperor. “For Jóhann” is classic Sakamoto, simple, slow chords from which Sakamoto derives maximal emotion.

There’s occasional dissonance in a Sakamoto work, notably on early album track “Solitude” and “The Wuthering Heights,” but the dominant sense in a Sakamoto melody is tranquility and rightness. Sakamoto doesn’t court grand gestures or drama, they seem to emerge on their own. Occasionally, such as on “The Sheltering Sky,” and “The Last Emperor,” as one must for films, Sakamoto descends into more difficult, tenuous places. But for the most part on Opus the notes themselves and the languid, without ever being lazy, way in which Sakamoto coaxes them from his piano keyboard speak for themselves. Opus is the perfect final showcase for a remarkable musician. (Jennifer Smart)