Toru Takemitsu - Music

Music

Composers whom Takemitsu cited as influential in his early work include Claude Debussy, Anton Webern, Edgard Varèse, Arnold Schoenberg, and Olivier Messiaen. (Messiaen was introduced to him by fellow composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, and remained a lifelong influence). Although Takemitsu was reluctant at first to develop an interest in traditional Japanese music after his wartime experiences of nationalism, Takemitsu showed an early interest in "... the Japanese Garden in color spacing and form ...". The formal garden of the kaiyu-shiki interested him in particular.

He expressed his unusual stance toward compositional theory early on, his lack of respect for the "trite rules of music, rules that are ... stifled by formulas and calculations"; for Takemitsu it was of far greater importance that "sounds have the freedom to breathe. ... Just as one cannot plan his life, neither can he plan music".

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 specified. This is evident in works such as November Steps, that combine traditional Japanese instruments, shakuhachi and biwa, with a conventional Western orchestra. It may also be discerned in his works for ensembles that make no use of traditional instruments, for example Quotation of Dream (1991), Archipelago S., for 21 players (1993), and Arc I & II (1963–66/1976). In these works, the more conventional orchestral forces are divided into unconventional "groups". Even where these instrumental combinations were determined by the particular ensemble commissioning the work, "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".