Takemitsu, Tōru

This debut recording by the auspicious Japanese pianist Satoko Inoue is doubly so because of its program: eight works by Japanese composers. Inoue is well-known for a repertoire of 20th century classical music by composers as diverse as Feldman, Cage, Varese, Debussy, and Ives. To choose for her debut recording the works of Japanese composers as diverse as Toru Takemitsu, Jo Kondo, Mamorou Fujieda, Sesshu Kai, and the father of all Nippon composers from the last century, Yoritsune Matsudaira. Given the difference between pre- and post-World War II Japan, it is of no surprise that the stylistic differences between composers born before and after the war would be great. All of them hold within them, however, one distinct quality: to offer the emotional essence of the object considered. Inoue wisely structures her program to convey the essentialist nature of all the works she performs.

Toru Takemitsu - Film Music by Toru Takemitsu (2006) {7CD Box Set Victor Entertainment Japan VICG-60593~9}
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© 2006 Victor Entertainment Japan | VICG-60593~9
Classical / Film Score / Contemporary Classical / Avant-Garde / Modern Composition

These are probably the rarest Takemitsu recordings around. Toru Takemitsu composed music for at least 70 films (I have read that it's actually around 90 but I haven't researched this) and the music can be exceptionally wide-ranging: traditional Japanese soloists and ensembles, Western classical tradition, avant-garde and everything in between (jazzy lounge and space age music, anyone?) I feel that some of his best film scores are those which have his delicate Debussian touches combined with traditional Asian music and soloists.

Toru Takemitsu - Complete Takemitsu Edition (2002) {Shogakukan ‎STZ 1~58, 5 Volumes}
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© 2002 Shogakukan ‎| STZ 1~58
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Avant-Garde / Film Score / Modern Composition / Japanese

Toru Takemitsu (1931-1996) was a self-taught Japanese composer who combined elements of Eastern and Western music and philosophy to create a unique sound world. Some of his early influences were the sonorities of Debussy, and Messiaen's use of nature imagery and modal scales. There is a certain influence of Webern in Takemitsu's use of silence, and Cage in his compositional philosophy, but his overall style is uniquely his own. Takemitsu believed in music as a means of ordering or contextualizing everyday sound in order to make it meaningful or comprehensible.

This is a handsome-looking compact disc release, with strikingly muted graphics in cool purple tones, featuring Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer and Japanese harpist Naoko Yoshina. Here the pretty graphics go a little too far: the buyer finds no listing of compositions on the outside of the package and has no way of knowing what is played aside from a bare mention of the names of the 11 composers featured. That's where the All Classical Guide comes in. The works were all written in the twentieth century. They are: Michio Miyagi's Haru no umi (Ocean in Spring, a calming, melodic piece); Kaija Saariaho's Nocturne for violin solo (a somewhat avant-garde coloristic piece); Toru Takemitsu's Stanza II for harp and tape (also pretty far out and very Japanese-sounding); Yuji Takahashi's Insomnia for violin, voices, and kugo (strange, but oddly soothing); a movement from Satie's Le fils des étoiles as arranged by Takahashi (austere); Jean Françaix's Five Little Duets (100 percent charming); the Étude for violin from Richard Strauss's Daphne (also charming); Six Melodies by John Cage (simple and pleasant); Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel (even simpler and not startling); Nino Rota's love theme from The Godfather (you know this one); and the final movement from Schnittke's Suite in the Old Style (gently Classical except for one deliberately horrendous dissonance).