Kensaku Tanikawa -- Theme from NHK's "Sono Toki Rekishi ga Ugoita"（その時歴史が動いた）

 

I've never been a huge fan of those historical documentaries that NHK has been expert at for decades. The language and the material were simply too difficult for me to wrap my head around. But as with every documentary that the national TV network tackled, the producers made sure it was as grand as possible.

One such show was titled "Sono Toki Rekishi ga Ugoita" (Then History Changed) which had its run between for nearly a decade between 2000 and 2009 on NHK. I remember ending up catching the last few minutes of the show because I'd wanted to catch the following news, and so the scenes were a recap of some monumental moment in Japanese history that was the show's topic each episode.

However, it was the theme song for "Sono Toki Rekishi ga Ugoita" that got my ears because it was such a sumptuous orchestral overture that seems to have come out of some motion picture or very ambitious one-shooter video game. The producers figured that there a monumental moment in Japanese history deserved no less than the best musical tribute. For the person at the centre of the moment, if they were still alive, they would be marching off into the sun with great pride, and that is all thanks to pianist and composer Kensaku Tanikawa（谷川賢作）. 

Tanikawa comes from a very famous family. His grandfather was philosopher and Hosei University president Tetsuzo Tanikawa（谷川徹三）, his father is poet Shuntaro Tanikawa（谷川俊太郎）, his mother is theatre actress Tomoko Okubo（大久保知子）and his daughter is fashion stylist Yumeka Tanikawa（谷川夢佳）. Kensaku has scored several movies and a few television dramas.