Toru Takemitsu

Tōru Takemitsu (武満 徹 Takemitsu Tōru, October 8, 1930 – February 20, 1996) was a Japanese composer, author of crime fiction, writer on aesthetics and music theory, and celebrity chef.[1] Largely self-taught in music, Takemitsu is known for his skill in the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre, drawing, in his works, from a wide range of influences, including jazz, popular music, avant-garde procedures and traditional Japanese music, in a harmonic idiom largely derived from the music of Claude Debussy and Olivier Messiaen. In 1958, he received international attention for his Requiem for strings (1957), which provided a foundation for the place he later took as the leading Japanese composer of the twentieth century. The recipient of numerous awards, commissions and honours, Takemitsu composed over 100 film scores and in the order of 130 concert works for ensembles of various sizes and combinations.

Biography

Tōru Takemitsu was born in Tokyo, on October 8, 1930 but moved to the region then known as Manchuria a month later, where his father was working. He returned to Japan to attend elementary school, but his education was cut short by military conscription in 1944. For Takemitsu, this experience of military service at such a young age, under the Japanese Nationalist government was '...extremely bitter'. It was, however, during his term of military service that the young Takemitsu had his first significant contact with Western Classical Music (banned in Japan during the war), in the form of a popular French Song (Parlez-moi d'amour), played to him and his colleagues in secret, on a gramophone with a makeshift needle fashioned from bamboo.

During the period of U.S. occupation in Japan following the war, Takemitsu worked for the U.S Armed Forces, but was unwell for a long period. Whilst hospitalised and having to remain in bed, Takemitsu took the opportunity to listen to as much Western music as he could on the U.S. Armed Forces Network. Takemitsu was deeply affected by these experiences of Western music, and simulatenously felt the need to distance himself from his own traditional music of Japan. Indeed, as he was to explain much later, in a lecture at the New York International Festival of the Arts, for Takemitsu, Japanese traditional music 'always recalled the bitter memories of war'.

Despite his almost complete lack of musical training, taking inspiration from what little Western Music he had heard, Takemitsu began his endeavours as a composer, aged 16. Though he underwent a brief period of instruction with Yasuji Kiyose, beginning in 1948, Takemitsu remained largely self-taught in music throughout his career.

Early development and Jikken Kōbō

1]

In 1951 Takemitsu was one of the founding members of the anti-academic Jikken Kōbō (experimental workshop) an artistic group established for multi-disciplinary collaboration on mixed media projects, and positively avoiding Japanese artistic tradition. The performances and works undertaken by the group, therefore, had the effect of introducing several contemporary western composers to Japanese audiences. During this period, Saegirarenai kyūsoku I (‘Uninterrupted Rest I’, 1952), was written for piano (a work without regular rhythmic pulse or barlines), and by 1955, Takemitsu had begun to use electronic tape-recording techniques in such works as Relief statique (1955) and Vocalism A·I (1956), (as pioneered during this period by Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz Stockhausen), (see Musique concrète).

In the late 1950s, Takemitsu managed to attract some international attention, somewhat by chance. His Requiem for string orchestra (1957) was heard by Igor Stravinsky in 1958 during a visit to Japan (the NHK had organised for Stravinsky to hear some of the latest Japanese music; when Takemitsu's work was put on by mistake, Stravinksy insisted he hear it to the end). Later at a press conference, Stravinsky expressed his admiration for the work, praising it for its "sincerity" and "passionate" writing. Stravinsky subsequently invited the young Takemitsu to lunch, for Takemitsu this was an "unforgettable" experience. Upon his return to the U.S.A., Stravinsky most likely spoke with Aaron Copland of Takemitsu's works, as not long after, he received a commission for a new work from the Koussevitsky Foundation (for which Takemitsu produced Dorian Horizon, (1966) premiered by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra conducted by Copland).

Influence of Cage, Interest in Traditional Japanese Music
During his time with Jikken Kōbō, Takemitsu had come into limited contact with the experimental work of John Cage; when composer Toshi Ichiyanagi returned from studies in the United States, however, he gave the first Japanese performance of Cage's Concert for Piano and Orchestra in 1961 which left a "deep impression" on the composer (he could still recall the impact of hearing the work when writing an obituary for Cage, 31 years on). This encouraged Takemitsu in the use of indeterminate procedures and graphic score notation, (employed for example in the graphic scores of Ring (1961), Corona for pianist(s) and Corona II for string(s) (both 1962), in which the performer is presented with cards printed with coloured circular patterns which are freely arranged by the performer to create 'the score'). And though the immediate influence of Cagean procedures did not last in Takemitsu's music, (Coral Island, for example for soprano and orchestra (1962) shows significant departures from indeterminate procedures and presents renewed interest in the musical procedures of Anton Webern), certain congruences between Cage's philosophies and Takemitsu's thought remained with Takemitsu indefinitely; for example, Cage's emphasis on timbres within individual sound-events and his notion of silence "as plenum rather than vacuum", can be aligned with Takemitsu's interest in ma).

Furthermore, Cage's interest in Zen practice (through his contact with Zen Master Daisetzu Suzuki), seems to have resulted in a renewed interest in the East in general, and ultimately alerted Takemitsu to the potential for incorporating elements from Japanese traditional music into his composition:

I must express my deep and sincere gratitute to John Cage. The reason for this is that in my own life, in my own development, for a long period I strugled to avoid being "Japanese", to avoid "Japanese" qualities. It was largely through my contact with John Cage that I came to recognize the value of my own tradition...

For Takemitsu, as he explained later in a lecture in 1988, one specific performance of Japanese traditional music stood out to him in particular.

...one day I chanced to see a performance of the Bunraku puppet theater and was very surprised by it. It was in the tone quality, the timbre, of the futazao shamisen, the wide-necked shamisen used in Bunraku, that I first recognized the splendor of traditional Japanese music. I was very moved by it and I wondered why my attention had never been captured before by this Japanese music.

From this point onwards, he resolved to study all types of traditional Japanese musics, paying special attention to the differences between the two musical traditions; in a diligent attempt to "...bring forth the sensibilities of Japanese music that had always been within [him]...". This was no easy task; in the years following the war, traditional music was largely overlooked and ignored: only one or two "masters" continued to keep their art alive, often meeting with public indifference. In conservatoires across the country, students of traditional instruments, for example, were always required to learn the piano.

From the early 1960s, Takemitsu began to make use of traditional instruments in his music, taking up the biwa himself, to facilitate this process, an instrument he used in his score for the film Seppuku (1962). His studies came to culmination when, in 1967, Takemitsu received a commission from the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, to commemorate the orchestra's 125th anniversary, for which he wrote November Steps, for biwa, shakuhachi and orchestra. Initially, Takemitsu had great difficulty in uniting these instruments from such different musical cultures in one work: Eclipse for biwa and shakuhachi (1966) illustrates Takemitsu's attempts to find a viable notational system for these instruments, that in normal circumstances neither sound together, nor perform works notated in any system of Western Staff Notation.

Nevertheless, the task was eventually accomplished, and the first performance was given under the baton of Seiji Ozawa, (in 1967). Despite the trials of writing such an ambitious work, Takemitsu maintained "that making the attempt was very worthwhile because what resulted somehow liberated music from a certain stagnation and brought to music something distinctly new and different".[9] The success of the work, and its distribution in the West, was guaranteed when the work was released as the fourth side of an LP recording of Messiaen's Turanglila Symphony.

In 1972, Takemitsu, accompanied by Iannis Xenakis, Betsy Jolas, and others, went to hear gamelan music in its native habitat, Bali. The experience was to have a profound influence on the composer, largely on a philosophical and theological level. For those accompanying Takemitsu on the expedition, (most of whom were French musicians), who "...could not keep their composure as I did before this music: it was too foreign for them to be able to assess the resulting discrepancies with their logic", the experience was without precedent but for Takemitsu, already so familiar with his native musical tradition, there was a relationship between "the sounds of the gamelan, the tone of the kapachi, the unique scales and rhythms by which they are formed, and Japanese traditional music which had shaped such a large part of my sensitivity". In his solo piano work, For Away (written for Roger Woodward in 1973), a single, complex line is distributed between the pianist's hands, which reflects the interlocking patterns between the metallophones of a gamelan orchestra.

A year later, Takemitsu returned the instrumental combination of shakuhachi, biwa and orchestra, in the less well-known work, Autumn (1973). The significance of this work is revealed in its far greater integration of the traditional Japanese instruments into the orchestral discourse; whereas in November Steps, the two contrasting instrumental ensembles perform largely in alternation, with only a few moments of contact. Takemitsu expressed this change in attitude:

But now my attitude is getting to be a little different, I think. Now my concern is mostly to find out what there is in common... Autumn was written after November Steps. I really wanted to do something which I hadn't done in November Steps, not to blend the instruments, but to integrate them.

International Status and the Gradual Shift in Style
By 1970, Takemitsu's reputation as a leading member of avant-garde community was well established, and during his involvement with Expo '70, which took place in Osaka, he was finally able to meet more of his Western colleagues, including Karlheinz Stockhausen. Similarly, during a contemporary music festival, in April 1970, produced by the Japanese composer himself, ("Iron and Steel Pavillion"), Takemitsu had the chance to meet, among the participants, Lukas Foss, Peter Sculthorpe and Vinko Globokar. Later in the same year, Takemitsu, as part of a commission from Paul Sacher, and the Zurich Collegium Musicum, Takemitsu incorporated parts for international perfomers - flautist Aurèle Nicolet, oboist Heinz Holliger and harpist Ursula Holliger, in his Eucalytpus I.

Takemitsu died of pneumonia while undergoing treatment for bladder cancer.

Music
Takemitsu Claude Debussy, Anton Webern, Edgar Varese, Arnold Schoenberg and Olivier Messiaen (Messiaen was introduced to him by fellow composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, and remained a large influence until death). Though he was reluctant at first to develop an interest in traditional Japanese music after his experiences of nationalism during the war, Takemitsu showed an interest in the "...the Japanese Garden in color spacing and form..." from early on in his career. The formal garden of the kaiyu-shiki interested him in particular.

Takemitsu's sensitivity to instrumental and orchestral timbre can be heard throughout his work, and is often made apparent by the unusual instrumental combinations he wrote for, not only in works such as November Steps, that combine traditional Japanese instruments, shakuhachi and biwa, with a conventional Western orchestra; but also in works purely for Western ensembles, where for example in Quotation of Dream (1991), Archipelago S., for twenty one players (1993), and Arc I & II (1963-66/1976), orchestral forces are divided into unconventional "groups". Indeed, even where these instrumental combinations were specifically commission-determined, for particular ensembles beforehand, "Takemitsu's genius for instrumentation (and genius it was, in my view)...", in the words of Oliver Knussen, "...creates the illusion that the instrumental restrictions are self-imposed".

Influence of Traditional Japanese Music

Example 1. Bar 10 of Masque I, Continu, for two flutes (1959). An early example of Takemitsu's incorporation of traditional Japanese music in his writing, shown in the unusually notated quater-tone pitch bend above.Despite his professed aversion to Japanese traditional musical forms very early on his career (he later changed his mind and became quite an expert on Japanese traditional music), Takemitsu seems, nevertheless, to have incorporated some idiomatic elements of Japanese music in his early works, which can be seen for example in the quarter-tone glissandi of Masques I (for two flutes, 1959), which can be seen to mirror the characteristic pitch bends of the shakuhachi. In this instance he even devised his own unique notation, a held note is tied to an enharmonic spelling of the same pitch class, with a portamento direction across the tie.

Example 2. Opening bars of Litany - In Memory of Michael Vyner, i Adagio, for solo piano (1950/1989). Another early example of Takemitsu's incorporation of traditional Japanese music in his writing, shown here in the use of the Japanese in scale in the upper melodic line of the right hand part. ( Listen)Other "Japanese" characteristics of Takemitsu music, include the use of traditional, pentatonic scales. In the opening bars of Litany, for Michael Vyner (first movement), a reconstruction from memory by Takemitsu of Lento in Due Movimenti (1950) (the original score was lost), this trait is clearly visible in the upper voice, which opens the work on an unaccompanied anacrusis. The pitches of the opening melody combine together to form the constituent notes of the Japanese In scale, in its ascending form.

When, from the early 1960s, Takemitsu began to "conciously apprehend" the sounds of traditional Japanese music, he found that his creative process, "the logic of my compostional thought[,] was torn apart", and nevertheless, "hogaku [traditional Japanese music]... seized my heart and refuses to release it". In particular, Takemitsu perceived that, for example, the sound of a single stroke of the biwa or single pitch breathed through the shakuhachi, could "so transport our reason because they are of extreme complexity... already complete in themselves". This fascination with the sounds produced in traditional Japanese music brought Takemitsu to his idea of ma (usually translated as the space between two objects), which ultimately informed his understanding of the intense quality of traditional Japanese music as a whole:

Just one sound can be complete in itself, for its complexity lies in the formulation of ma, an unquantifiable metaphysical space (duration) of dynamically tensed absence of sound. For example, in the performance of Nō, the ma of sound and silence does not have an organic relation for the purpose of artistic expression. Rather, these two elements contrast sharply with one another in an immaterial balance.

In 1970, Takemitsu received a commission from the National Theatre of Japan to write a work the gagaku ensemble of the Imperial Household, for which, in 1973, he finally completed Shuteiga ('In an Autumn Garden') (though he later incorporated the work, as the fourth movement, into his 50 minute long "In an Autumn Garden - Complete Version". As well as being "...the furthest removed from the West of any work he had written", whilst nevertheless introducing certain western musical ideas to the Japanese court ensemble, the work represents the deepest of Takemitsu's investigations into Japanese musical tradition, the lasting effects of which are clearly reflected in his works for conventional western ensemble formats that followed.

Example 3. Standard chords produced the shō, mouth organ of the traditional Japanese court ensemble, gagaku.In Garden Rain (1974 - for brass ensemble), the limited and pitch-specific harmonic vocabulary of the Japanese mouth organ, the shō, and its specific timbres, are clearly emulated in Takemitsu's writing for brass instruments; even similarities of performance practice can be seen, (the players are often required chords to the limit of their breath capacity). In A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden, the characteristic timbres of the shō, its chords (several of which are "verticalisations" of traditional Japanese pentatonic scales) are emulated in the opening held chords of the wind instruments (the first chord is in fact an exact transposition of the shō's chord, Jū (i); meanwhile a solo oboe is assigned a melodic line that is similarly reminiscent of the lines played by the hichiriki in gagaku ensembles.

Influence of Messiaen

Example 4. Comparison of ex.94 from Olivier Messiaen's Technique de mon language musical and one of the principal motives from Takemitsu's Quatrain (1975).The influence of Olivier Messiaen on Takemitsu can already be perceived in some of the Takemitsu's earliest published works. By the time he had composed Lento in Due Movimenti, (1950), Takemitsu had already come into possession of a copy of Messiaen's 8 Préludes (through Toshi Ichiyanagi), and the influence of Messiaen is clearly visible in the work, in the use of modes, the suspension of regular metre, and sensitivity to timbre. Indeed, throughout his career Takemitsu often made use of modes to derive his musical material, both melodic and harmonic among which Messiaen's modes of limited transposition seem to appear with some frequency. In particular, the use of the octatonic, (mode II (or the 8-28 collection)) and mode VI (8-25) is particularly common. However, Takemitsu pointed out that he had used the octatonic collection in his music, before ever coming across it in Messiaen's music.

In 1977, Takemitsu met with Messiaen in New York, where during "what was to be a one-hour 'lesson' [but which] lasted three hours... Messiaen played his Quartet for the End of Time for Takemitsu at the piano". Takemitsu responded to this with an hommage to the French composer, Quatrain, for which he asked Messiaen's permission to use the same instrumental combination for the main quartet, cello, violin, clarinet and piano (which is accompanied by orchestra). As well in the obvious similarity of instrumentation, Takemitsu employs several melodic figures that appear to "mimic" certain musical examples given by Messiaen in his Technique de mon langage musical.

Influence of Debussy
Takemitsu frequently expressed his indebtedness to Claude Debussy, referring to the French composer as his "great mentor". As Arnold Whitall put it:

Given the enthusiasm for the exotic and the Orient in these [Debussy and Messiaen] and other French composers, it is understandable that Takemitsu should have been attracted to the expressive and formal qualities of music is which flexibility of rhythm and richness of harmony count for so much."

During the composition of his Green (November Steps II, for orchestra, 1967) ("steeped in the sound-color world of the orchestral music of Claude Debussy") Takemitsu professed to having taken the scores of Debussy's Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un Faun and Jeux to the mountain villa where both this work and November Steps I were composed. For Oliver Knussen, "the final appearance of the main theme irresistibly prompts the thought that Takemitsu may, quite unconsciously, have been attempting a latterday Japanese Après-midi d'un Faun". Details of orchestration, such as the prominent use of antique cymbals, tremolandi harmonies in the strings, clearly point to the influence of Takemitsu's compositional mentor, and these works in particular.

In the later work, Quotation of Dream (1991), direct quotations from Debussy's La Mer, and other earlier works of Takemitsu's relating to the sea are incorporated into the musical flow ("stylistic jolts were not intended"), used to depict the landscape outside the Japanese garden of his own music.

Motives
Several recurring musical motives can be heard in Takemitsu's works. In particular the following pitch motive (E-flat E-Natural A-natural) can be heard in many of his later works, whose titles refer to water in some form (Toward the Sea (1980), Rain Tree Sketch (1982), I Hear the Water Dreaming (1987)).

Example 5. Various examples of Takemitsu's S-E-A motive, derived from the German spelling of the notes E-flat, E-natural, A-natural ("Es-E-A").When spelt in German (Es E A), the motive can be seen as a musical 'transliteration' of the word "Sea". Takemitsu used this motive (usually transposed) to indicate the presence of water in his 'musical landscapes', even in works whose titles do not directly refer to water, such as A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden (1977)

Musique Concrète
During Takemitsu's years as a member of the Jikken Kōbō, he undertook several compositional experiments in the field of Musique Concrète (and a very limited amount of elektronische Musik the most notable example being Stanza II for harp and tape written later in 1972). In Water Music (1960 listen (help·info)), Takemitsu's source material consisted entirely of sounds produced by droplets of water. His manipulation of these sound materials, (through the use of highly percussive envelopes), often results in the resemblance of tradtional Japanese instruments, such as the tsuzuki and nō ensembles.

Aleatory Techniques
One aspect of John Cage's compositional procedure that Takemitsu continued to use throughout his career, was the use of indeterminacy, in which performers are given a certain degree of choice in how they perform. As mentioned previously, this was particularly useful in works such as November Steps, in which essentially improvising musicians, playing traditional Japanese instruments, were able to play in an orchestral setting with a certain degree of freedom. However, he also employed the technique in his well-known orchestral work A Flock Descends Into the Pentagonal Garden (1977) (at [J] in the score listen (help·info)), and in the score of Arc II: i Textures (1964) for piano and orchestra, in which sections of the orchestra are divided into groups, and required to repeat short passages of music at will. In these passages the overall sequence of events is, however, controlled by the conductor, who has rehearsal numbers (and approximate durations for each section), which s/he indicates to the orchestra when s/he wishes to move from one passage to next.

Film Music
Takemitsu's contribution to film music was considerable; in under 40 years he composed music for over 100 films, some of which were written purely for financial reasons (such as those written for Nakamura Noboru). However, as the composer attained financial independence, he grew more selective as to which films he composed for, often reading the whole script beforehand, and later surveying the action on set, "breathing the atmosphere" whilst conceiving some his musical ideas. One notable consideration of Takemitsu's composition for film was the careful use of silence (also important in many of his concert works), which often brought about an immediate intensification to the events on screen, and prevented the occurence of overall monotony through the continuous sounding of music. In his score accompanying the final battle scene of Akira Kurosawa's Ran, an extend passage of intense elegiac quality is immediately halted at the sound of a single gun shot, leaving the audience with the pure "sounds of battle: cries screams and neighing horses". Above all, Takemitsu attached the greatest importance to the director's conception of the film; in an interview with Max Tessier, he explained that, "everything depends on the film itself... I try to concentrate as much as possible on the subject, so that I can express what the director feels himself. I try to extend his feelings with my music."

Awards
Takemitsu won several awards for composition in his lifetime, both in and outside of Japan, including the Prix Italia for his orchestral work Tableau noir (1958), the Otaka Prize (1976 and 1981), the Los Angeles Film Critics Award (1987, for the film score Ran) and the Grawemeyer Award (1994, for Fantasma/Cantos). In Japan, he received the Film Awards of the Japanese Academy for outstanding achievement in music, for soundtracks to the following films:

1979 Ai no borei
1986 Ran (乱)
1990 Rikyu
1996 Sharaku (写楽)
He was also invited to attend numerous international festivals throughout his career, and gave lectures and talks at various academic institutions across the world. He was made an honorary member of the Akademie der Künste of the DDR (1979) and the American Institute of Arts and Letters (1985), and in France was admitted to the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1985) and the Académie des Beaux-Arts (1986). He was posthumously awarded the fourth Glenn Gould Prize in Autumn, 1996.

Notable Compositions

Orchestral Works

Requiem for String Orchestra (1957)
Music of Tree (1961)
The Dorian Horizon (1966)
Green (1967)
Winter (1971)
A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden (1977)
A Way A Lone II for string orchestra (version of A Way a Lone for string quartet)
Rain Coming for chamber orchestra (1982)
Dream/Window (1985)
Twill by Twilight - In Memory of Morton Feldman (1988)
Tree Line for chamber orchestra (1988)
Visions (1990)
I Mystère
II Les yeux clos
How slow the Wind (1991)
Archipelago S. for twenty-one players (1993)

Works for soloists and orchestra
Arc Part I for piano and orchestra (1963-1966/1976)
I Pile (1963)
II Solitude (1966)
III Your love and the crossing (1963)
Arc Part II for piano and orchestra (1964-1966/1976)
I Textures (1964)
II Reflection (1966)
III Coda... Shall begin from the end (1966)
November Steps for biwa, shakuhachi and orchestra (1967)
Asterism for piano and orchestra (1967)
Eucalyptus I for flute, oboe, harp and string orchestra (1970)
Autumn for biwa, shakuhachi and orchestra (1973)
Quatrain for clarient, violin, cello, piano and orchestra (1975)
Far calls. Coming, far! for violin and orchestra (1980)
Toward the Sea II for alto flute, harp and string orchestra (version of Toward the Sea for alto flute and guitar (1981))
Orion and Pleiades for cello and orchestra (1984)
riverrun for piano and orchestra (1984)
I Hear the Water Dreaming for flute and orchestra (1987)
Nostalghia - In Memory of Andrei Tarkovsky for violin and string orchestra (1987)
A String Around Autumn for viola and orchestra (1989)
Fantasma/Cantos for clarinet and orchestra (1991)

Chamber Works
Le Son Calligraphé I-III for four violins, two violas and two cellos (1958-1960)
Ring for flute, terz guitar and lute (1961)
Corona II for string(s) graphic work in collaboration with Kōhei Sugiura (1962)
Arc for Strings graphic work (1963)
Valeria for violin, cello, guitar, electric organ and two piccolos (1965)
Eucalyptus II for flute, oboe and harp (1971)
In an Autumn Garden for gagaku orchestra (1973/1979)
Garden Rain for brass ensemble (1974)
Waves for clarinet, horn, two trombones and bass drum (1976)
Quatrain II for clarinet, violin, cello and piano (1977)
A Way a Lone for string quartet (1981)
Signals from Heaven - two antiphonal fanfares for two brass groups (1987)
I Day Signal
II Night Signal
I then I knew 'twas Wind for flute, viola and harp (1992)

Piano works
Romance (1949)
Lento in Due Movimenti (1950) (unpublished/original lost - rewritten as Litany, 1989)
Piano Distance (1961)
Corona for pianist(s) graphic score (in collaboration with Kōhei Sugiura) (1962)
Crossing graphic score (in collaboration with Kōhei Sugiura) (1962)
For Away (1973)
Les yeux clos (1979
Rain Tree Sketch (1982)
Litany - In Memory of Michael Vyner recomposition of Lento in Due Movimenti (1950/1989)
Rain Tree Sketch II - In Memoriam Olivier Messiaen (1992)