Тору Такемицу

[Дмитрий Ларош]

Результаты вопроса еще более интересны,чем результаты злополучного ) опроса об Алькане.

Изучаю общественное мнение...

[Дмитрий Ларош]

A mediator between East and West: The musical world of Toru Takemitsu

"I'd like to develop in two directions at once," Toru Takemitsu once explained; "as a Japanese I want to develop in terms of tradition and as a Westerner in terms of innovation. Deep down inside me I'd like to preserve two musical genres, each in its own legitimate form. But, in my own view, there are so many different compositional processes that setting out from these fundamentally irreconcilable elements is only the first step. I don't want to lose their fruitful opposition; on the contrary, I'd like these two blocks to compete with each other. In this way I can prevent myself from becoming cut off from tradition and, at the same time, forge ahead and look to the future with each new work. I'd like to produce sounds that are as intense as silence."

This mediation between East and West and between Far Eastern and Western views on art is entirely typical of the work of Toru Takemitsu. It was initially very difficult for him to find an internationally acceptable, modern language that did not involve abandoning the Japanese tradition and, with it, his musical roots, and he first had to distance himself, physically and aesthetically, from his native Japan before he realized the importance of Japanese culture for his own work. Only when he had left Japan and was living in Europe did he discover his own individual idiom in the form of a language that combined Far Eastern thinking with the achievements of the Western avant-garde.

Toru Takemitsu was born in Tokyo in 1930 and died there in 1996. He is generally regarded as one of the leading Japanese composers of the 20th century. Although he generally wrote for Western instruments and was considered a representative of the avant-garde movement in music, his aesthetic outlook was essentially Japanese. The phenomenon of breathing forms the inspiration behind his music and determines its textures. As a result, there are no rapid tempos in his otherwise multifaceted oeuvre, and his works are distinguished less by their developing structures than by static, associative processes. This is especially true of the group of pieces in which Takemitsu used Japanese instruments. Here one thinks above all of November Steps (1967), in which he contrasted the traditional biwa and shakuhachi with a classical orchestra. In the tenth of the work's eleven sections there is an extended cadenza for both solo instruments. Both soloists are given certain figures to play, but these can be played in any order. Here Takemitsu was not aiming to fuse Eastern and Western musical practices within a single work. Rather, he juxtaposed the various aesthetic programmes that determined his thinking at this particular time. But by the time that he wrote Autumn six years later, he was more concerned to effect a rapprochement between two such different worlds. By investing tone colour with a central importance, he aimed to achieve a timbral and stylistic balance between soloists and orchestra (the work is scored for the same resources as November Steps) and also between East and West.

A number of Takemitsu's chamber works are likewise scored for traditional Japanese instruments. Eclipse (1966) was written for biwa and shakuhachi, Voyage (1973) for three biwas. The Japanese idiom emerges far more clearly from these works than from Takemitsu's contemporary pieces for traditional Western instruments, even though he continued to use the most advanced technical and stylistic devices here. Sound was conceived as a living force in a permanent state of change and yet - like breathing - it does not develop in the direction of a fixed goal, but prefers instead to adopt a cyclical approach to form.

Within the framework of Takemitsu's oeuvre, In an Autumn Garden (1973) occupies a special place. An exceptional piece by any standards, it was written for a traditional gagaku orchestra, with the result that the aural impression that it creates is correspondingly "authentic". Within its six sections, the composer unfolds a panorama in sound, drawing in part on the long tradition of Japanese court music, with its profoundly ritualistic character, while also revealing elements that are typical of the composer's own musical thinking: the subtle approach to tone colours that flow into each other, the tender and at the same time expressive harmonic writing and a good sense of large-scale dramatic structures. Nowhere did Takemitsu come closer to traditional Japanese music than in this particular piece.

Takemitsu once summed up his compositional creed as follows: "What I don't want to do is use my control to set sounds moving in the direction of a particular goal. Rather, I'd like to release them, if possible without controlling them. It would be enough to collect the sounds around me and then gently set them in motion. To move sounds around, as though you were driving a car, is the worst thing that you can do with them."

[Дмитрий Ларош]

TORU TAKEMITSU (1930-1996)

Student Project Contributed by Mariko Morita


General Characteristics
Self-taught composer who was fascinated by Western music during the hardship of the Second World War. He did not have any interest in his native Japanese traditional music until later on, even though his aunt whom he lived with was a koto player. His compositional style is greatly influenced by the style of Debussy's colorful sonorities, Messiaen's modes of limited transpositions, and Webern's sense of integration.
First gained international fame with his first orchestral piece, Requiem for String Orchestra (1957) thanks to the acclamation of Igor Stravinsky who happened to have listened to the piece during his visit in Japan in 1959. This piece was dedicated to the memory of his teacher Fumio Hayasaka. After completion of this piece, Takemitsu became aware of certain dualities in the real world - life and death, self and others, individuals and whole, and also, the West and East.
The first composition in which he used the Japanese traditional instruments, Shakuhachi and biwa, was November Steps. This piece was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for its 125th anniversary. Leonard Bernstein asked Takemitsu to compose a piece which unifies the Western and Japanese traditional music. The piece was first performed on the occasion conducted by Seiji Ozawa.
His idea of 'incorporating the sounds of nature' is shown in the titles of his pieces such as "water," "tree," "garden," "dream," and "numbers." He especially has a deep philosophy for "sea" and "river" related to water. In his famous piece Toward the Sea L, IL, & III, he uses what he calls "sea motive" which are the notes, Es(Eb), E, and A.
His. pieces unify the opposite dualities, such as Western and Eastern, the tone cluster and silence, death and life, ancient and modern, etc.
The range and genre of his compositional styles are huge. Also, he was an excellent essayist as well as a composer for film music. He had published about twenty books and had written many articles in news papers, and musical magazines. Since 1956, he composed music to more than 90 films.
Founder of Jikken Kobo (Experimental Workshop) with his several artistic friends, and Humio Hayasaka in 1951. This artistic group premiered much of Messiaen's music in Japan, and introduced other twentieth-century composers' music such as B&la Bart&k, Erik Satie, Darius Milhaud, Arnold Schoenberg, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and Samuel Barber.
Was a visiting professor at Yale University in 1975. He never taught a student in an institution in Japan, even though many young composers have been influenced by him.
He obtained many international prizes as well as domestic prizes in Japan.
Before the completion of his first Opera, La Madrugada (The Dawn) with its libretto by American writer, Barry Gifford (b. 1946), directed by Swiss, Daniel Schmitt (b. 1941), he died of cancer on February 20, 1996. The work was planed to premiere in Lyon National Opera House in the fall of 1998, conducted by Kent Nagano.

[Дмитрий Ларош]

Who was Toru Takemitsu?
A tiny, delicate man, standing just over 5ft high, Takemitsu was a giant in Japanese cultural life and in international contemporary music. He wrote hundreds of works for the concert platform, as well as 93 film scores, a detective novel and critical works on music, film and literature. A leading intellectual, he also had an insatiable appetite for popular culture. He was a fanatical cinema-goer, and had an encyclopaedic knowledge of Western pop music. He had a famous sense of humour and a prodigious gift for friendship, counting among his close friends John Cage, Morton Feldman, Oliver Knussen, Seiji Ozawa and many other leading artists and musicians.

'I am self taught, but I consider Debussy my teacher'

'My teachers are Duke Ellington and nature'

-'I have recognised my own culture through studying modern Western music'.

'I feel a deep reverence for the precise workings and the great order in nature, and still wish to learn more from nature as I compose music'

As a young man, Takemitsu had a long illness, and lay for several years in bed listening to post-war American military radio. This instilled a knowledge and love of jazz and for Western classical music. From Debussy, who impressed him particularly, he identified 'colour, light and shadow' as important elements. This pervades all of his music, but is most explicit in Green for orchestra, which he described as 'an attempt to enter the secrets of Debussy's music'

He assimilated influences from Western Avant Garde music. Sonic experimentation from Stockhausen and Cage, precision and economy from Morton Feldman, opulent colours and ecstatic sensuality from Messiaen.

Only gradually did Takemitsu, in common with many other Japanese artists after the second world war, acknowledge influences from Japanese traditional culture in his work. Gradually, however, he began to allow Japanese traditional sounds and a more explicitly Japanese sensibility into his music November Steps is a concerto for biwa (Japanese lute) and shakuhachi (bamboo flute), and In an Autumn Garden is a major work for Gagaku, the Japanese court orchestra. Characterised by a haunting and seemingly endless melody played on flutesryteiki, hichiriki (shawms) backed by mouth organs (sho) and drums.

Nature is a constant background to Takemitsu's music, and is reflected in many of his titles: Rain Coming, Tree Line, How Slow the Wind, Toward the Sea, Archipelago S, All in Twilight, In the Woods, And Then I Knew 'twas Wind
'A garden never spurns those who enter it'.

'I can imagine a garden superimposed over the image of an orchestra. A garden is composed of various different elements and sophisticated details that converge to form a harmonious whole. Each element does not exert its individuality, but achieves a state of anonymity - and that is the kind of music that I would like to create.'

One of Takemitsu's favourite analogies was to compare composing and listening to music to walking through a formal Japanese garden. Many of his titles refer to gardens: A flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden, Spirit Garden, In An Autumn Garden. In his piece for piano and orchestra Arc he paints this picture most vividly: 'The orchestra represents the sand, rocks, trees and grass. The piano assumes the role of the wanderer who walks through the garden in part 1 and returns along the same path in part 2.'
Takemitsu wrote the music for 93 Japanese films. He was closely associated with film-makers of the Japanese new wave, and provided the score for such Japanese classics as Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes and Kurosawa's Ran. His film music was as important to him as his concert music, chiefly because of his obsession with the cinema. He was the ultimate film-buff, and boasted that he saw around 300 films a year, his tastes embracing Hollywood blockbusters, westerns, art movies and trash. When visiting a strange country, would often head straight for a cinema as his first port of call, whether or not he understood the language. He drew parallels between music and film, in their manipulation of time, perception and memory.

'I learn a great deal about people through movies...even if I can't understand what they are saying and don't know anything about their culture. By watching them in the movies, I can get a sense of their feelings and their inner lives. I come to understand foreign people in ways that are different from talking to them...it's a musical way of understanding'.

[Дмитрий Ларош]

На этом сайте можно послушать отдельные отрывки сочинений композитора.

[Алексей]

Не могу ответить "нет", поскольку одно (или два) его произведение я слышал
Но если говорить о "знакомстве с его творчеством", то конечно - "нет".

[A-Lex]

Знаком ли с Такемитсу? Я, поколебавшись, ответил да, хотя прослушав всего три диска ТТ, понимаю что это немного самоуверенно. Особенно велика моя неграмотность в отношении его первых "авангардных" (сериальных и электронных) опусов.

С другой стороны - каждый услышавший "позднюю", не суть важно какую музыку Такемитсу может притязать на это "знакомство". Услышанный однажды "эмоциональный импрессионизм" его поздних сочинений немедленно узнаваем во всех иных инкарнациях: сад, море, мечта, течение воды, осень, любимый (им) Джойс ("Поминки по Финнегану"). Свет ночной, ночные тени... Куда это меня занесло? А, да... Авангард. Восток-Запад. Тору Такемитсу...

Так вот, в то время как вся Москва пела и плясала в Стрит-Блюзе, я прослушал недавно вышедший диск "A String around Autumn" (BIS) - весьма представительное собрание "типичного" Такемитсу. Главный хит: "A String around..." - одноимённая пьеса для альта и оркестра. Кроме этого на диске: I Hear the Water Dreaming - довольно известное сочинение 70-х (для флейты с оркестром), а также две "Джойсовкие" пьесы - A Way a Lone II (вспомним звуковую заумь последних строк Finnegans wake : A way a lone a last a loved a long the...) и riverrun для фортепиано.

Продолжительность первой пьесы чуть более 17 минут. Потом её переслушиваешь. А потом ещё. И ешё. И ещё. И все равно нет ответа на вопрос: а почему же так красиво? Вернее - для чего? Зачем? Разве можно в "пост-Донауэшингенский" период писать так целеноправленно чувственно, "атмосферно", деликатно, используя такую палитру звуков и красок? Возможна ли в современном произведении такая красота звука - почти на грани китча? Должно же этому быть какое-нибудь "эстетическое" оправдание. Было бы слишком легковесно искать объяснение заметным "равелизмам" и "цезаря-франкизмам" в внешних аспектах посвящения этого произведения "французскому народу" (пьеса написана в юбилейном 1989 году).

Так в чём же "the catch"? Где же авангардная изюминка? Все её ищут. В интересной аннотации к этому диску Лейф Хегерстам предлагает взглянуть на "необычность" текстуры Такемитсу с такой стороны - музыка возникает ниоткуда и исчезает в никуда, звуки словно раствореются, всё подвешено в воздухе... Другие критики усматривают даже в позднем "импрессионистическом" Такемитсу опыт работы с электронными шумами, "синусами и импульсами"( немало и таких, кто подчёркивает связь его музыкального языка с минимализмом). Третие попросту называют его сочинения "киномузыкой", тем самым, как бы отказываясь даже решать загадку "о красоте и о авангарде". Кто-то уверяет, что разгадка - в восточной философии созерцания, а поискам идеальных структур, форм и языков он, человек Востока, чужд...

Быть может, быть может... Может быть и я разгадаю "философию его киномузыки", прослушав ещё с пяток раз его "A String... ", где "стринг" - базовый "октоплет", восьмитоновая основа всего произведения.
Запад-Восток, которым "суждено сойтись" уже в начале произведения: столь "японски" звучащая последовательность увеличенных секунд (G-B-Cis-E) "пермутирована" в главный лейтмотив из уменьшенной терции (2,3 ноты) с секстой (1 и 4) - почти Брамсовский по своему звучанию и направленности. Человек (альт), прогуливающийся осенью по японскому садику (оркестр)... Постоянно варьирующийся базовый "стринг" (мотив) - каждое дуновение ветра, каждый опавший лист изменяют ландшафт; нужно всматриваться и вслушиваться вновь...Частые повторы базового ряда, разделённые друг от друга паузами или еле слышным "фоном". "Звуковые волны"... Нерасчленимые подобно настоящим, морским. Где кончается одна волна и начинается следущая? Сколько их всего?...

И куда меня опять унесло? Сад, мечты, море, одиночество, осень, Дебюсси... Сочинения Такемитсу всё о том же. Похожие друг на друга как две морские волны. И кто же против?...

[Дмитрий Ларош]

A-Lex,

я Ваш навсегда.

[Рудольф]

A-Lex,
я Ваш навсегда.

Подписываюсь под каждым словом!

[Рудольф]

О Учитель!
Наконец-то вчера (точнее, сегодня утром ) я таки добрался до Такемицу, и его музыка была прекрасна, как цветущая сакура. (Правда, я выпил столько сакэ, что продавец ПЛ не сразу понял, диски какого композитора мне нужны Но и это не помешало ) Кроме того, по стечению обстоятельств во вторник в Музее Кино показывали фильм "Женщина в песках", где Такемицу - композитор.

И куда меня опять унесло? Сад, мечты, море, одиночество, осень, Дебюсси... Сочинения Такемитсу всё о том же.

Да, мне тоже показалось, что он очень похож на Дебюсси. Но с японским "ядром". Определённо, он принадлежит к той генерации японского искусства, которая поровну жила в японском и европейском контексте, т.е. Акутагава, Куросава и тд.