| Best known for his
work on Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy, Ikuma
Dan was an incredibly prolific composer during
the "Golden Age of Japanese Cinema."
Born in 1924, Dan showed a very early interest
in music as he began to learn the piano at age
seven. Dan continued his educating in the music
field and ended up enrolling in the Tokyo Music
Academy in 1942. Two years later, the future composer
also enlisted in the Toyama military band school
during World War II. After the war and his graduation,
Dan signed an exclusive agreement with NHK. During
this period, the composer created several popular
operas including his famous Twilight Crane
in 1952. His success in this regard caught the
attention of Toho, as he was brought on to compose
his first ever soundtrack for the 1952 production
Sword
for Hire. Pleased with his work, Toho
then signed the composer up under contract in
1954, as Dan would create numerous scores for
the company over the years, including as many
as seven soundtracks in both 1956 and 1957 for
Toho and its affiliates. Dan's success in both
film scores and his operas led the composer to
be picked to create the opening music for the
1964 Tokyo Olympics. It was around this time that
the composer also briefly took up a more active
role in film, writing the story for the 1965 movie
We
Will Remember, for which he used his
own military band experience to help create.
Unfortunately,
he left film composition in 1970 at the age of
46, with his last soundtrack being for Ishihara
Productions' Grand Everest Descent. Dan
continued scoring Operas, though, while he also
became active in trying to improve cultural relations
between China and Japan; something that he continued
to work toward up until 2001 when he passed away
while visiting Suzhou, China.
|
House of Many Pleasures (1955)