Born in Tokyo, Yuzo Toyama studied composition at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, graduating in 1952. In the next few years he started conducting, working at Tokyo’s NHK Symphony Orchestra, before going to Vienna for two years to study conducting. At one time or the other he has served as conductor of most of Japan’s major orchestras. In 1968 he was invited to Moscow for the premiere of his Cello Concerto with Mstislav Rostropovich as soloist. He also was a strong promoter of Western twentieth-century opera in Japan, especially the works of Benjamin Britten and Francis Poulenc.

Toyama made extensive use of authentic folk music in his works, but without modifying the melodies significantly. He composed the Rhapsody for Orchestra, a medley of Japanese folk melodies, in 1960 as an encore piece when he traveled to Europe as conductor with the NHK Symphony Orchestra. It opens with repeated clapping of the hyoshigi, the pair of wooden blocks used in Kabuki theatre to announce the beginning of a performance. The middle of the Rhapsody is a wistful flute solo, an oiwake-bushi or fork-of-the-road song from around Nagano in central Japan, sung by mule drivers when they came to a fork in the road. The Rhapsody closes with Yagibushi, a rousing song and dance performed at festivals and sport events. Toyama’s writing for a battery of traditional Japanese percussion instruments is particularly effective and novel to Western ears.