http://www.artistinterviews.eu/?page_id=62=22/
Toru Takemitsu
My music is like a garden, and I am the gardener
WOLFGANG BREYER, 1996
In the forty years he was active as a film composer, Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) wrote more than ninety film scores. He wrote the first for Crazed Fruit by Ko Nakahira. Until his death in January 1996, he remained faithful to a generation of directors who succeeded classic masters such as Ozu and Mizoguchi in the fifties and who changed the face of Japanese cinema.
Toru Takemitsu is better known in the West as a classical composer than as a film composer. His breakthrough as a classical composer was in 1957 with ‘Requiem for Strings’, which was highly praised by Igor Stravinsky during a visit to Japan. His name was established internationally in 1967 when, to mark the 125th anniversary of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, he composed ‘November Steps’, in which traditional Japanese instruments such as the Biwa (a four-stringed lute) and the Shakuhachi (a wooden flute) were used for the first time in combination with a Western symphony orchestra.
Since then his compositions have been heard in virtually all the world’s major concert halls. Takemitsu has earned his spurs in the world of classical music and in the cinema, although he saw no difference between the two worlds. For him they were two sides of one and the same musical philosophy.
The following conversation between Toru Takemitsu and Karsten Witt, General Manager of the Konzerthaus in Vienna, took place during the Contemporary Music Festival on November 4, 1993.
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
(KW:) You were born in 1930 and started to study composition at the age of 18. In 1948 Japan, and even in Europe, it was not easy for somebody to decide to study composition. What led you in that direction?
(TT:) I think it is still very difficult to decide to be a composer, but at that time, it was just after the war, everything was chaos. I had very strong impressions with music during the war and I was very young. I just decided to be a composer. If I had to do it again I might not make the same decision, but at that time I was very young and full of curiosity and I was very thirsty to listen to Western music. As a young student we studied just a very few Japanese medieval songs – marchlike music. So we young people were very thirsty to listen to Western music.
(TT:) I think it is still very difficult to decide to be a composer, but at that time, it was just after the war, everything was chaos. I had very strong impressions with music during the war and I was very young. I just decided to be a composer. If I had to do it again I might not make the same decision, but at that time I was very young and full of curiosity and I was very thirsty to listen to Western music. As a young student we studied just a very few Japanese medieval songs – marchlike music. So we young people were very thirsty to listen to Western music.
KW:) When you started to study composition, did you have any experience in composing?(TT:) Not at all! Of course I loved music very much, and my father was a big jazz collector. I had actually grown up in China (Manchuria) because of my father’s business. Every evening he listened to jazz – very old fashioned jazz music. So I knew very little about music except my father’s jazz music.
(KW:) In your biography, you state that you were self-taught?
(TT:) Yes. I studied music by myself – I did not go to any school. Of course I studied privately for a very short period with Mr. Yasuji Kiyose (1900-1981). I brought some of my pieces to him for evaluation, but he did not teach me any technical fundamentals about music. He just spoke very much about literature, about art, paintings – so I am very much influenced by his personality and his way of living. My music is very much influenced by American radio, because after the war Japan was occupied by the American Army and they had a radio station for the American soldiers. Every afternoon they broadcast three hours, of beautiful classical music – Bruno Walter, Toscanini, or Paul Whiteman from the Hollywood Bowl. I listened to radio every day. My first teacher was the radio.
(TT:) Yes. I studied music by myself – I did not go to any school. Of course I studied privately for a very short period with Mr. Yasuji Kiyose (1900-1981). I brought some of my pieces to him for evaluation, but he did not teach me any technical fundamentals about music. He just spoke very much about literature, about art, paintings – so I am very much influenced by his personality and his way of living. My music is very much influenced by American radio, because after the war Japan was occupied by the American Army and they had a radio station for the American soldiers. Every afternoon they broadcast three hours, of beautiful classical music – Bruno Walter, Toscanini, or Paul Whiteman from the Hollywood Bowl. I listened to radio every day. My first teacher was the radio.
(KW:) But composing is more than listening; to learn to compose is more than analyzing the music of other people…(TT:) When I decided to be a composer I could not read music and I had no knowledge about music. I just really loved music. So I had great difficulties describing the music on paper and I had no instruments. So when I walked alone through the city, if I heard a piano sound from some place, I would visit the house and ask to touch the piano for 5 minutes. I was never refused! I was very lucky. Sometimes nowadays some stranger visits backstage after one of my concerts and says, “I lent my piano to you when you were young!” I have touched many different pianos!
When I got married, my wife had some musical background so I studied a lot with her. I was too poor to buy an instrument and I thought to be a composer I would just need pencil and paper and it would be a very simple thing! You mentioned listening and analyzing… Analyzing music is very important for a composer himself, but I think a composer should first be a listener. Listening to music with imagination is the most important thing for a composer.
You know, I am Japanese, but when I decided to be a composer, I did not know anything about my own musical tradition. I hated everything about Japan at that time because of my experience during the war. I really wanted to be a composer who was writing Western music, but after I had studied Western music for ten years I discovered by chance my own Japanese traditions. At that time I was crazy about the ‘Viennese School’ composers, and by chance I heard the music of the Bunraku Puppet Theater. I got a shock – oh, what a very strong, beautiful music. I suddenly recognized that I was Japanese and I should study my own tradition. So I started learning to play the Biwa. I studied it with a great master for two years and became very serious about our tradition. But I still try to combine it with Western music in my compositions.
(KW:) Would you explain how you integrate Japanese elements into your music? Using a Japanese instrument does not in itself constitute Japanese music. There are also a lot of European and American composers who are integrating Japanese instruments into traditional orchestral sounds.
(TT:) My music is like a garden, and I am the gardener. Listening to my my music can be compared to walking through a garden and experiencing the changes in light, pattern, and texture. I do not like to emphasize too much with my music. Someone once criticized my music as getting to be very old fashioned. Maybe I am old, but I am looking back to the past with nostalgia. Composers are sometimes afraid to use tonality, but we can use anything from the tonal to the atonal – this is our treasure. I can say that because I am Japanese!
(TT:) My music is like a garden, and I am the gardener. Listening to my my music can be compared to walking through a garden and experiencing the changes in light, pattern, and texture. I do not like to emphasize too much with my music. Someone once criticized my music as getting to be very old fashioned. Maybe I am old, but I am looking back to the past with nostalgia. Composers are sometimes afraid to use tonality, but we can use anything from the tonal to the atonal – this is our treasure. I can say that because I am Japanese!
(KW:) You have written the music for more than 80 films. What do you feel is the relationship between your film music and your other compositions?(TT:) One reason is that it makes a living, of course. But I did such a large number of film scores because I love film! Film is still a very important medium for a composer. Unfortunately, the film business is getting to be so commercial and I must say the way music is used has become very bad. But writing music for film is very healthy for a composer, because sometimes a composer’s life is very unhealthy – he is closed apart from people, in a quiet place. This is not good! The collaboration with other people who have different ideas is very important. The composer is like an actress who is very beautiful but may not be a great actress. A good director can make her a great actress – and a big star! So, like that I am expecting a good filmmaker to make me a good film composer!
Originally published in Soundtrack! Magazine. Used by permission
Tōru Takemitsu (武満 徹 Takemitsu Tōru), (Tòquio, 8 d'octubre de 1930 - Tòquio, 20 de febrer de 1996) va ser un compositor japonès, que va explorar els principis de la composició musical propis de la música clàssica occidental i la tradició musical japonesa. Tant per separat com en combinació.
Nascut a Tòquio, Takemitsu es va interessar en un principi en la música clàssica occidental en els temps de la Segona Guerra Mundial. Va escoltar música occidental en una emissora de ràdio militar americana mentre es recuperava d'una llarga malaltia. També escoltava jazz de l'àmplia col·lecció de son pare.
Va ser bàsicament un autodidacta. Molt influït per la música clàssica francesa, en particular per la de Claude Debussy i Olivier Messiaen, l'any 1951 va fundar Jikken Kobo, un grup que va introduir a l'obra de molts compositors europeus contemporanis a l'audiència japonesa.
Al principi Takemitsu no es va interessar per la música tradicional japonesa, però després
Takemitsu va cridar per primera vegada l'atenció d'àmplies audiències amb el seu Rèquiem per a orquestra de corda" (1957) que va ser accidentalment escoltat i lloat per Ígor Stravinski l'any 1959 (un dia en què es pretenia que Stravinski escoltara unes cintes gravades amb música de compositors japonesos, van posar en escolta per error, la cara contrària d'una cinta en què s'havia gravat el Rèquiem de Takemitsu. Van intentar esmenar l'error, però Stravinski no ho va permetre fins a completar l'escolta i va acabar admirant en públic l'obra de Takemitsu).
L'obra de Takemitsu inclou la peça per a orquestra A Flock Descends Into the Pentagonal Garden (1977), Riverrun per a piano i orquestra (1984 (el títol de la qual és la primera paraula del Finnegans Wake de James Joyce), i el quartet de corda A Way a Lone (1981), una altra peça inspirada per la lectura de Finnegans Wake). En 1981 va refer el seuToward the Sea (per a flauta i guitarra) dues vegades més, una per a flauta, arpa i orquestra de corda i després per a flauta i arpa. Cal esmentar també música de cambra com araDistance de Fee (1951) per a violí i piano, o Between tides, per a violí, violoncel i piano. Així mateix ha compost importants obres per a piano: Rain tree sketch (1982), Rain Tree sketch II (1992), Les Yeux Clos (1979) i Les Yeux Clos II (1988) són considerades entre les millors peces per a l'instrument escrites en el segle XX.
També va compondre musica electroacústica i prop de cent bandes sonores per a pel·lícules de cine japonés entre les que s'inclouen les de les pel·lícules Sunna no onna (1964), en anglès Woman in the Dunes, d'Hiroshi Teshigahara, Ran (1985) d'Akira Kurosawa i Kuroi ame (1989), en anglès Black Rain, de Shohei Imamura. La seua primera partitura cinematogràfica va ser per a Ginrin de Toshio Matsumoto. La seua música per a cine està profundament arrelada en el concepte que una nova pel·lícula necessita un nou color sonor i té tant que veure d'obtenir nous sons de la pel·lícula, com que nous sons entren a formar part de la pel·lícula.
Alguns dels conceptes formals en la música de Takemitsu depenen profundament de la seua imatgeria visual, basada en la pintura, els sons o la seua visió del tradicional jardí japonès (sobre el qual va escriure abundantment).
Va ser premiat a títol pòstum amb el Quart premi Glenn Gould a la tardor de 1996.
[modifica]Bibliografia
- Peter Burt, The Music of Toru Takemitsu (Cambridge University Press, 2001)
- Noriko Ohtake, Creative sources for the Music of Toru Takemitsu (Ashgate, 1993)
- Toru Takemitsu, Confronting Silence (Fallen Leaf Press, 1995)