The demise of Ryuichi Sakamoto, an Oscar recipient for “The Last Emperor” in 1988, a renowned Japanese composer.

“I honestly don’t know how many years I still have ahead of me. But I know I want to keep making music. Music I won’t be ashamed to leave behind, meaningful.” Ryuichi Sakamoto as early as 2017telling himself in the documentary about his life «Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda»imagined that the throat cancer eradicated three years sooner it could have recurred. However, his interest in music had remained unceasing, perhaps he had become even more stubborn.

Japanese composer, Oscar winner for the soundtrack of the film «The Last Emperor”, died last Tuesday at the age of 71 and “lived with music until the end”, underlines the press release from his entourage who only disclosed the news of his death today. Under treatment for a new tumor, this time in the rectum, discovered in 2020 and reached stage four last year, also involving the lungs, “he continued to work in his home office whenever his health allowed him”.

On the other hand, Sakamoto was his art: born in 1952 in Nakano, Tokyo, studied piano and graduated in composition. In high school, says the biography on his official website, he had to take a crowded train to go to class: “Unable to move, all that the teenager Sakamoto could do was listen”, identifying over 10 different sounds produced by the train and going to look for them every morning. A training that had made him a curious and tireless listener, convinced that “anything can be music”.

Fascinated as much by the Beatles as by Debussy, by John Cage and John Coltrane, at the end of the 70s he had joined the Yellow Magic Orchestra, a forerunner of synth pop that was already giving space to his passion for electronics and experimentation. But it is with the music for the films, continued in parallel with a long line of solo albums, that his name has become one of the most appreciated in recent decades.

It was the turning point «Furyo» from which the famous one comes «Forbidden colours», a version sung by David Sylvian of the film’s theme: five notes are enough to identify it and to immortalize one of the hallmarks of Sakamoto’s genius, namely the ability to blend oriental sounds with western instruments, touching the soul of who listens. In the 1983 film, directed by Nagisa Oshima, Sakamoto also made his debut as an actor, an army captain locked up in a harsh prison camp, attracted by a New Zealand officer, played by none other than David Bowie. “The director first asked me to act. And actually the shooting was done first, then I did the soundtrack. I almost fell off my chair watching my bad acting, but all the emotion went into the music,” Sakamoto said of the experience. And even if he returned to acting on other occasions, he recognized himself only in his compositions.

Con “The Last Emperor”(1987) the Oscar arrived, one of the nine won by Bernardo Bertolucci’s film in 1988: Sakamoto shared the music with David Byrne and Cong Su, in an experiment by the director to bring East and West together with the composers as well as in the production. “The funny thing is that a lot of people thought I wrote the Chinese parts of the music and David Byrne wrote the Western ones. Instead it was the other way around,” Sakamoto later said. He returned to work with the Italian director also ne “Little Buddha» e “Tea in the Desert”calling him “a father, a brother, a friend”. Among the soundtracks of over 30 films (from «High heels” by Almodovar a «Revenant» by Inarritu), made disparate forays, such as the music for the opening of the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992 and, more recently, for an episode of the series «Black Mirror».

Dense white hair and round glasses, elegant and minimalist in his image as well as in his compositions, he described himself as «shy and non-exhibitionist». In addition to music, however, he was a passionate environmental activist, involved in movements against the use of nuclear power especially after the Fukushima disaster. His funeral, reads his statement, will be held privately, open only to the family. And he is remembered through one of his favorite quotes: «Ars longa, vita brevis», art is long, life is short.