Roses in the Palace Garden

May 1, 2022

There was a work titled “The Rose of Versailles” in Japanese manga. For the Japanese of my generation, the magnificent palace and the vivid roses were symbols of Western gorgeousness.

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With the spread of rose gardening tools, roses are now often seen in Japan. However, the intense light of color, which can be seen even from a distance, show me an exceptionally different view in the Japanese landscape. Flowers native to Japan soften the glare of early summer, but roses reflect the dazzling light with colors on them.

Searching the Internet for photos of roses, I noticed that Japanese sites have many photos of gardens planted roses only, while foreign sites have photos of gardens with roses and other flowers planted together. The reason is, perhaps, roses do not harmonize with other flowers in Japan. However, for that reason, the rose is still a symbol of the West.

It was more than three years ago that I started writing a rose-themed song, but for a reason, I could not make a song about roses themselves. After many failed attempts, I finally completed it by combining roses and palaces.

It may be a little loud song. That’s because I wrote this in the middle of winter and I couldn’t wait for the summer days. I wanted to make strings fully resonate like glare summer sun ray, and this feeling also helped me to complete this piece.

I wrote that it was difficult to make a song for the roses themselves, but this song has two sister songs. One is a palace-only song and the other is a rose-only song. However, this song was not made by combining the two. For the rose-only song, I wrote another impression of the roses. And then, from the various phrases I had created combining roses and palaces, I separated and restructured the phrases that suited roses and the phrases that suited the palace. This kind of effort and ideas are really the joy of composing.

I would like to publish the remaining two songs someday.

Both songs are published.

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Download Page: Score, TAB and mp3 for free

Song Information
  • Title: Palace in Roses
  • Composer: Issay Tsumeki ( 爪木一晴 )
  • Work number: Op. 28
  • Date of composition: Feb. 6, 2021
  • Date of release May. 1, 2022
Photos