Machu Picchu - City in the Sky

The composer writes: “The significance of Machu Picchu begins with … the Incan empire at its zenith, and its tragic encounter with the Spanish conquistadors. The great 16th century empire that unified most of Andean South America had as its capital the golden city of Cuzco… Francisco Pizarro [stripped] … massive quantities of gold [and] destroyed Cuzco’s Sun Temple, shrine of the founding deity of the Incan civilization. [In 1911] archeologist Hiram Bingham rediscovered [the city.] At the central high point … stands its most important shrine, the Intihuatana, or “hitching post of the sun,” a column of stone rising from a block of granite the size of a grand piano, where a priest would “tie the sun to the stone” at winter solstice to insure its seasonal return… I wished to musically describe that magnificent citadel and trace some of the mysteries sealed in [its] past. Three principal ideas dominate … 1) the shimmering golden city of Cuzco set in the dramatic scenery of the Andes, 2) the destructiveness of violent invasion, and 3) the re-emergence of Incan glory as the City in the Sky again reached for the sun.”

Satoshi Yagisawa (b. 1975) graduated from the Musashino Academy of Music. He studied composition, trumpet and band instruction and earned his Master’s of music. His varied work includes orchestral, chamber and choral music, and music for traditional Japanese instruments. He teaches at Tokyo Music & Media Arts.