Tōru Takemitsu
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Tōru Takemitsu | ||
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| Background information | ||
| Born | October 8, 1930 Tokyo, Japan |
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| Died | February 20, 1996 Tokyo, Japan | |
| Genre(s) | Classical, film, Japanese traditional | |
| Occupation(s) | Composer, writer | |
| Years active | fl.ca. 1945-1996 | |
Tōru Takemitsu (武満 徹 Takemitsu Tōru, October 8, 1930 – February 20, 1996) was a Japanese composer. Largely self-taught in music Takemitsu possessed great skill in the subtle manipulation of intrumental and orchestral timbre, drawing from a wide range influences, incorporating jazz, popular music, avant-garde procedures (in his music for tape), (and later) traditional Japanese music, in a harmonic idiom derived from the music of Claude Debussy and Olivier Messiaen.[1][2][3] He first came to international and national attention with his Requiem for strings, in 1957, from which point onwards his reputation as the leading Japanese composer of the 20th century continued to grow.[2] He received several awards, commisions and honorary teaching positions in his life time, composed prolifically for various ensemble combinations, and wrote 93 scores for film.[4][3]
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[edit] Life
Born in Tokyo, Takemitsu moved to China a month after his birth, where his father was working.[3] Returning to Japan in 1938, Takemitsu attended elementary school, but his formal education was cut short in 1944 by conscription. During this period of military service Takemitsu came into contact with Western Classical Music for the first time (which was banned in Japan during the war),[5] in the form of a popular French Song (Parlez-moi d'amour), played to him by a fellow-conscript.[3] Following the war, Takemitsu was employed at an American military base during the occupation, and during his service, took the opportunity to listen to a great deal of Western Music on U.S. military radio. Takemitsu seems to have been deeply affected by these musical experiences, and in spite of his lack of training, he decided, aged 16, to make his career as a composer.[3] Indeed, despite some periodic instruction with Kiyote beginning in 1948, Takemitsu remained largely self-taught in music.[3]
Composers Takemitsu cited as influences on his compositional style include Claude Debussy, Anton Webern, Edgar Varese, Arnold Schoenberg and Olivier Messiaen[6] (Messiaen in particular was introduced to him by fellow composer Toshi Ichiyanagi).[3] He also made it clear that he was interested in Japanese tradition, particularly in the form of "...the Japanese Garden in color spacing and form..."[7] (though he initially shied away from deliberately incorporating elements of Japanese traditional music in his compositions).[8][3] In 1951 Takemitsu was one of the founding members of the Jikken Kōbō (experimental workshop) an artistic group established for multi-disciplinary collaboration on mixed media projects, the output of which had the effect of introducing several contemporary western composers to Japanese audiences.[3][9]
Although Takemitsu had little interest at first in traditional Japanese music, he later incorporated Japanese instruments such as the shakuhachi (a kind of bamboo flute) into the orchestra. November Steps (1967), a work for shakuhachi and biwa (a kind of Japanese lute) solo and orchestra was the first piece to combine instruments from east and west. In an Autumn Garden (1973-79) is written for the kind of orchestra that would have played gagaku (traditional Japanese court music). Works such as Eclipse, (1966) for shakuhachi and biwa, Voyage (1973), for three biwas should also been mentioned as works that are decidedly derived from traditional genres.
Takemitsu first came to wide attention when his Requiem for string orchestra (1957) was accidentally heard and praised by Igor Stravinsky in 1959. (Some Japanese people wanted Igor Stravinsky to hear some tape recorded music by Japanese composers and put in the wrong side of the tape; when they tried to take it out, Stravinsky didn't let them.) Stravinsky went on to champion Takemitsu's work.
During his career, Takemitsu composed music for motion pictures, including scores for directors Hiroshi Teshigahara, Akira Kurosawa, Masaki Kobayashi, and Shohei Imamura.
Takemitsu died of bladder cancer and pneumonia while undergoing cancer treatment.
[edit] 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).[3] In Japan, he received the Film Awards of the Japanese Academy for outstanding achievement in music, for soundtracks to the following films:
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.
[edit] Music
Takemitsu's works include the orchestral piece A Flock Descends Into the Pentagonal Garden (1977), Riverrun for piano and orchestra (1984, the title is the first word in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake), and the string quartet A way a Lone (1981, another piece inspired by Finnegans Wake). He reworked his 1981 piece Toward the Sea (for flute and guitar) twice, once for flute, harp and string orchestra and later again for flute and harp. Chamber music such as Distance de Fee (1951) for violin and piano, or Between tides, for violin, cello and piano, are to be also mentioned. And such jewels of the piano music as Rain tree sketch (1982), Rain Tree Sketch II (1992), Les Yeux Clos (1979) and Les Yeux Clos II (1988) are considered to be amongst the finest works for the instrument written in the twentieth century. He also composed electronic music and almost a hundred film scores for Japanese films including those for Hiroshi Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes (1964), Akira Kurosawa's Ran (1985) and Shohei Imamura's Black Rain (1989). His first score was for Toshio Matsumoto's Ginrin. His music for cinema rests deeply upon the concept that a new film needs a new sound colour, and is as much about taking out sounds as about taking them in.
Some of the formal concepts in Takemitsu's music depend deeply on visual imagery, taken from paintings, dreams, or his concept (about which he writes much) of the garden.
From 2002 to 2004, Shogakukan released "COMPLETE TAKEMITSU EDITION" which consists of 58 CDs and 5 books.
[edit] Works
[edit] Orchestral
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[edit] Chamber
- Distance de Fée (妖精の距離) (1951, 1989), for violin and piano
- Concerto de Chambre (室内協奏曲) (1955), for 13 instruments
- Le Son Calligraphié (ソン・カリグラフィ) (1958, 1960), for Strings
- Landscape (ランドスケープ) (1960), for strings quartet
- Ring (リング) (1961), for flute, guiter and lute
- Sacrifice (サクリファイス) (1962), for flute, lute and vibraphone
- Hika (悲歌) (1966), for violin and piano
- Eclipse (エクリプス<蝕>) (1966) , for shakuhachi and biwa
- Stanza I (スタンザ I) (1969), for female voice, guiter, vibraphone, harpsichord, piano and harp
- Valeria (ヴァレリア) (1965, 1969), for violin, cello, guiter, piccolo and Hammond Organ
- Eucalypts II (ユーカリプスII) (1971), for oboe, flute and harp
- Distance (ディスタンス) (1972), for oboe and Sho ad lib.
- Garden Rain (ガーデン・レイン) (1974), for Brass Ensemble
- Bryce (ブライス) (1976), for flute, harp and percussion
- Waves (ウェイブス<波>) (1976), for clarinet, horn, trombone and bass drum
- Quatrain II (カトレーンII) (1977), for piano, clarinet, violin and cello
- Waterways (ウォーターウェイズ) (1978), for harp and vibraphone
- A Way A Lone (ア・ウェイ・ア・ローン) (1980), for Strings quartet
- Toward the Sea (海へ) (1981), for flute and guitar (another version for flute and harp)
- Rain Spell (雨の呪文) (1982), for flute, clarinet, harp, piano and vibraphone
- From far beyond Chrysanthemums and November Fog (十一月の霧と菊の彼方から) (1983), for violin and piano
- Rocking Mirror Daybreak (揺れる鏡の夜明け) (1983), for two violins
- Orion (オリオン) (1984), for cello and piano
- Entre-temps (アントゥル・タン) (1986), for oboe and strings quartet
- Signals from Heaven - Two Antiphonal Fanfares - (シグナルズ・フロム・ヘヴン - Two Antiphonal Fanfares -) (1987), for two horns, piccolo trumpet, four trumpets (also two cornets), four trombones and tuba
- Toward the Sea III (海へ III) (1988), for alto flute and harp
- And then I knew 'twas Wind (そして、それが風であることを知った) (1992), for flute, viola and harp
- Between tides (ビトゥイーン・タイズ) (1993), for violin, cello and piano
- A Bird came down the Walk (鳥が道に降りてきた) (1994), for viola and piano
- Le Fils des Étoiles - Prélude du 1er Acte 'La Vocation' - (星たちの息子 -第一幕への前奏曲『天職』-) (1975), for flute and harp
- Herbstlied (秋のうた) (1993), for clarinet and strings quartet
[edit] Piano
[edit] Flute music
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[edit] Guitar music
[edit] Percussion music
[edit] Other Instrumental
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[edit] Vocal and Chorus
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[edit] Electronic/Tape music
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[edit] Film music
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[edit] Notes
- ^ McKenzie, Don, 'Review: [Untitled] Reviewed Work(s): To the Edge of Dream, for Guitar and Orchestra', Notes, 2nd Ser., Vol. 46, No. 1. ([Notes is currently published by] Music Library Association, Sep., 1989), p. 230.
- ^ a b c d e f "Takemitsu, Toru", The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, Ed. Michael Kennedy. (Oxford University Press, 1996), Oxford Reference Online, Oxford University Press (accessed 16 March 2007) [1] (subscription access)
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Narazaki, Yoko (with Kanazawa Masakata). "Takemitsu, Toru", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 4 March 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
- ^ Burton, Anthony, 'Takemitsu, Tōru', The Oxford Companion to Music, Ed. Alison Latham, (Oxford University Press, 2002) Oxford Reference Online, (accessed 2 April 2007) [2] (subscription access)
- ^ Kanazawa, Masakata. "Japan, §IX, 2(i): Music in the period of Westernization: Western music and Japan up to 1945", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 9 March 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
- ^ 'Octatonicism in Recent Solo Piano Works of Tōru Takemitsu', Koozin, Timothy, Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 29, No. 1. (Winter, 1991), pp. 124
- ^ From a lecture given by Tōru Takemitsu at Columbia University , 14 November, 1989, in 'Octatonicism in Recent Solo Piano Works of Tōru Takemitsu', Koozin, Timothy, Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 29, No. 1. (Winter, 1991), pp. 124
- ^ Analysts such as Edward Smaldone have however argued that pitch structure in Takemitsu's music (even in his early works), is derived from the pitch hierarchy of Japanese Classical Music - See Smaldone, Edward, 'Japanese and Western Confluences in Large-Scale Pitch Organization of Tōru Takemitsu's November Steps and Autumn', Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 27, No. 2. (Summer, 1989), pp. 216-231
- ^ 'Takemitsu, Toru', Oxford Concise Dictionary of Music, ed. Michael Kennedy (Oxford 2004), p. 722, ISBN: 9780198608844
- ^ a b c d Narazaki, Yoko (with Kanzawa, Masakata). "Takemitsu, Tōru: Works", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 16 March 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
[edit] Further reading
- Burt, Peter (2001). The Music of Toru Takemitsu. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521782201.
- Takemitsu, Toru (1995). Confronting Silence. Fallen Leaf Press. ISBN 0914913360.
- Ohtake, Noriko (1993). Creative sources for the Music of Toru Takemitsu. Scolar Press. ISBN 0859679543.
[edit] Listening
- Toru Takemitsu at the Avant Garde Project
- Richard Stoltzman and Chris Comer discuss the Takemitsu Clarinet Concerto Fantasma/Cantos (29 Nov 2005)
[edit] External links
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| R. Murray Schafer (1987) • Yehudi Menuhin (1990) • Oscar Peterson (1993) • Toru Takemitsu (1996) • Yo-Yo Ma (1999) • Pierre Boulez (2002) • André Previn (2005) |
