In the autumn of 2022, knowing his time was running out, Ryuichi Sakamoto summoned every ounce of his remaining strength to give us one last, definitive performance. Opus is that performance - a solo piano concert capturing one of the world's greatest musicians in his most vulnerable and transcendent moment. Curated and sequenced by Sakamoto himself, the twenty pieces wordlessly tell the story of his life and his vast body of work. The selection spans his entire career: from his pop-star period with Yellow Magic Orchestra to his magnificent scores for Bernardo Bertolucci and Nagisa Oshima, through to his meditative final album 12.

The sessions were recorded at Tokyo's legendary NHK 509 Studio and filmed by his son Neo Sora. Sakamoto was too weak to perform the entire set at once - just a few songs a day, with maximum concentration, was all he could manage. Yet the result is an intimate document traversing nearly five decades of musical genius. Among the twenty tracks are tributes to departed collaborators - one for Bertolucci and another for composer Jóhann Jóhannsson - as well as new compositions and never-before-recorded arrangements, including a reimagined version of YMO's "Tong Poo" and a piece performed on prepared piano.

"The project was conceived as a way to record my performances - while I was still able to perform - in a way that is worth preserving for the future," Sakamoto said after the sessions. "In some sense, while thinking of this as my last opportunity to perform, I also felt that I was able to break new ground."

Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952-2023) was a composer, producer and artist born in Tokyo. His career includes pioneering work with Yellow Magic Orchestra, numerous classical compositions, two operas, and nearly 45 film scores for directors including Bertolucci, Pedro Almodóvar, Brian De Palma and Alejandro González Iñárritu. His film work earned him an Academy Award, two Golden Globes, a BAFTA and a Grammy.