Reception
The performers of the New York Philharmonic were openly skeptical of playing with the two Japanese instruments, however, after hearing the first extended passage for the biwa and shakuhachi, concerns began to wane. Shouts of "Bravo!" came from the orchestra after the end of the first rehearsal. The first performance received compliments from Leonard Bernstein, Krzysztof Penderecki, Aaron Copland and other prominent musicians. Takemitsu expressed the view the positive reception of the work was proof that if a sound has value it will appeal to all people, not just to particular nationalities.
Shortly after the premier, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, under its conductor Seiji Ozawa, gave November Steps its second performance in Toronto's Massey Hall. The work was distributed widely in the West when Ozawa and the Toronto Symphony included it on the fourth side of an LP of Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony recorded in December 1967. Under Ozawa, this orchestra also gave the work its first televised performance, in a 1970 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program, "East-West Concerto". In 1970 November Steps also had the distinction of being the only Japanese-composed music performed at Expo '70 when Ozawa conducted it in Suita, Osaka, Japan
Read more about this topic: November Steps
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