Confronting Silence

Rating:
Summary: Deeply profound,almost haiku-like in brevity,gentleness
Review: "But I think of time as circular and continuity as a constant changing state." So said Toru Takemitsu in this modest yet profoundly readable book. He has been writing on his music, all of it where his creativity has touched all genres including a sizable repertoire in film, since 1960s. This work here is haiku-like excerpts, But for Takemitsu that's all we really need for he ascends right to the center of where creativity occurs squarely on point. If thinking on music knows some geometric graphic, the shortest distance between two points it is here. He is a deep thinker, when his November Steps for Orcehstra was performed by The New York Philharmonic,he wandered the streets around his hotel in Manhatten trying to get the experience inside him, to wind it down in a way.Silence is what nature has given us, we then as creators fill it, or structure sounds around silence. He keeps his own culture rich in complexity always in the forefront of his thinking. He compares for instance the simultaneous complexity of the Japanese instruments, the shakuhachi flute and the biwa,like a lute, and the overwhelming experience when he first heard a Western size orchestra in The United States.He has written for both in an interesting way, trying to forge an East-West amalgam,knowing the conceptual limitations of both genres.Takemitsu's music comes from nature, he has essays here on water,trees,silence and gardens, and he equates the durational part of his orchestral work as like a quiet private walk in a garden.If you ever heard his music it is rich in textural display,colourful knowing full the uniqueness of timbre from any instrument. Frequently his orchestral work features an instrument to function almost like a concerto. Dreams are also important to him as his work" A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden" where his orchestral thinking lends itself quite well toward a timeless canvas of sound,sputtering and slowly transforming from colour to colour in the orchestra. You rarely feel the barline pulse in his music. On his film work,he was the first to purely utilize simple percussive sounds as wind-chimes,maraca and bamboo chimes as accompaniment to film, which is now the lingua franca of the film composers repertoire.There is nothing like the placement of a sharp maraca pulse with silences to create a sense of tension and danger. He won an award for his score to Kurosawa's "Ran" a deeply violent film with literally hundreds of extras fighting battles of early aristocratic agrarian struggles. There are also sensitive portraits of other artists as John Cage,who had helped Takemitsu find a place in the West. There was still animosity against the Japanese that went well into the Sixties from the Second World War in artistic circles as well. So we hardly knew of this rich repertoire of orchestral work out of Japan. His reflections extended to a music festival in Honolulu where the visual artist Jasper Johns was in attendance and recalls his briefcase had only a deck of cards, a carton of cigarettes, a mystery novel and a sketchpad. The sketchpad was used for a work the Johns completed while there renting a studio.The "Watchmen" was the painting left behind.

Rating:
Summary: Deeply profound,almost haiku-like in brevity,gentleness
Review: "But I think of time as circular and continuity as a constant changing state." So said Toru Takemitsu in this modest yet profoundly readable book. He has been writing on his music, all of it where his creativity has touched all genres including a sizable repertoire in film, since 1960s. This work here is haiku-like excerpts, But for Takemitsu that's all we really need for he ascends right to the center of where creativity occurs squarely on point. If thinking on music knows some geometric graphic, the shortest distance between two points it is here. He is a deep thinker, when his November Steps for Orcehstra was performed by The New York Philharmonic,he wandered the streets around his hotel in Manhatten trying to get the experience inside him, to wind it down in a way.Silence is what nature has given us, we then as creators fill it, or structure sounds around silence. He keeps his own culture rich in complexity always in the forefront of his thinking. He compares for instance the simultaneous complexity of the Japanese instruments, the shakuhachi flute and the biwa,like a lute, and the overwhelming experience when he first heard a Western size orchestra in The United States.He has written for both in an interesting way, trying to forge an East-West amalgam,knowing the conceptual limitations of both genres.Takemitsu's music comes from nature, he has essays here on water,trees,silence and gardens, and he equates the durational part of his orchestral work as like a quiet private walk in a garden.If you ever heard his music it is rich in textural display,colourful knowing full the uniqueness of timbre from any instrument. Frequently his orchestral work features an instrument to function almost like a concerto. Dreams are also important to him as his work" A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden" where his orchestral thinking lends itself quite well toward a timeless canvas of sound,sputtering and slowly transforming from colour to colour in the orchestra. You rarely feel the barline pulse in his music. On his film work,he was the first to purely utilize simple percussive sounds as wind-chimes,maraca and bamboo chimes as accompaniment to film, which is now the lingua franca of the film composers repertoire.There is nothing like the placement of a sharp maraca pulse with silences to create a sense of tension and danger. He won an award for his score to Kurosawa's "Ran" a deeply violent film with literally hundreds of extras fighting battles of early aristocratic agrarian struggles. There are also sensitive portraits of other artists as John Cage,who had helped Takemitsu find a place in the West. There was still animosity against the Japanese that went well into the Sixties from the Second World War in artistic circles as well. So we hardly knew of this rich repertoire of orchestral work out of Japan. His reflections extended to a music festival in Honolulu where the visual artist Jasper Johns was in attendance and recalls his briefcase had only a deck of cards, a carton of cigarettes, a mystery novel and a sketchpad. The sketchpad was used for a work the Johns completed while there renting a studio.The "Watchmen" was the painting left behind.