WHO SAID THAT?

Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996)

 

"...

 Western music - the sounds that I do always are called so, and certainly, it should have pursued human existences through the sounds since it was established as art in the Renaissance. Although there appeared various kinds of musical forms or order and rules in the fields, the music forgot its primary matters unnoticed, came to pursue only the newness of a style and the novelty on technique.

 All of the Western cultures are following a tendency to be subdivided, and also the music shows the same situation reflected, which it reached the limitation of a complicated rhythm and mechanical one that is far from physical movements of human beings, and of very intricate abuses concerning musical intervals only as a technical matter. Under such a situation, Japanese and also Asian music is quite suggestive. But, although I have no concrete ideas now that how Japanese and Western music can be changed as an actual problem, it should be important to understand that music is in quite a different musical world from Western music, first of all.

...

 Certainly, Japanese music exists as another kind of music that never can be ruled by Western orchestras and the forms of its ensembles ...

...

 So, my way of approaching the matters is that I think of them through each of my actual activities such as a musical composition. Indeed, I want to clarify the absolute differences between Japanese music and Western one making the two conflicts by the same amount, but I don't know yet how I can do it. In this case, it should be needed to certify the differences between them only referring to the modern Western music without making the character of Japanese music unclear, and to stress the matter as the two sounds are not similar completely through the various ways such as a musical composing.

 

 

 … Takemitsu was a Japanese composer. He aspired to a career as a composer since the age of sixteen, organized an experimental artistic group of the avant-garde school with his poet friend. After a while, he published ‘Requiem for String Music’ that influenced Russian great composer Stravinsky much. The works of Takemitsu were ranked high in foreign countries as well with many commissioned works from because the musical taste has a delicate construction, which united the sensibilities of the West and the East with originality that poesy and elaboration exist together. He also played an active role in making film music and managing modern music festivals, wrote many books with excellent words. One of the notable works is ‘November Steps’ that adopted Japanese traditional musical instruments effectively.