toru takemitsu

TORU TAKEMITSU
1930 - 1996

Toru Takemitsu was a Japanese composer who achieved international acclaim. He was largely influenced by various contemporary artists – such as Debussy, Copland, and Messiaen -
and their styles, and constantly tried to build his own music by conflating his cultural/spiritual identity with them. Takemitsu especially focused on the possibilities of timbre and sound. He criticized the fact that Western avant-garde music was paying too much attention to scientific rationalism, ignoring the relationship between music and people. 
As an alternative to this, he pursued subtle timbral manipulation and explored various sounds and noises from daily life. In addition, Takemitsu is famous for combining elements of Eastern and Western philosophy and for incorporating silence and tradition with innovation. He showed great interest in expressing the atmosphere of his home country, Japan, musically. For instance, „November Steps“ (1967) is a symphony that rediscovered traditional Japanese values under the influence of John Cage. Another representative work „A Flock Descendants into the Pentagonal Garden“ (1977) demonstrates the indigenous gardens of Japan.

TAKEMITSU AND GUITAR

Guitar works of Takemitsu show a deep understanding of timbre, organisation, and instrumentation, guitar is close to Takemitsu’s musical aest in that it has great potential to articulate both, Eastern and Western music styles. The classical guitar is an instrument that can digest a variety of Western musical elements, including
polyphony and homophony, while it produces sounds similar to the traditional Japanese instrument ‚Biwa‘.
In addition, the important keyword for understanding Takemitsu‘s guitar works is the Japanese aesthetics of ‚Ma‘. 
‚Ma‘ is a concept that is explained by the stationary state in time,
and/or the interval or emptiness in space. Takemitsu saw the stillness of this ‚Ma‘ as representing the latent energy, not the absence of sound.
The guitar is an instrument optimized for the musical implementation of this idea because of its sound mechanism; the plucked strings resonate with the body and its empty space.

Toward The Sea 1

All In Twilight 4

All In Twilight 3

夕暮れの約束 (TV Edit)

Toru Takemitsu

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