There is no shortage of commentaries on
Takemitsu's music, and there is a great deal of agreement on the main
issues. For this reason the blog will
restrict itself to matters of interest for composers and the general listener
of contemporary music.
The main point of interest is that Takemitsu's
music does not conform to the principles of strict organisation. This makes Takemitsu more of a craftsman in
his approach than an architect, or as the music historians would have us
understand, a gardener who places his timbres and phrases with an eye for balance
of colour and form. For those who enjoy
gardening (like my wife) there is a need to form collections or groups of
plants in groups, as singular plants are easily lost, having heard this stated
throughout my life I shall take it as gospel! If the metaphor holds one should hear collections of phrases of similar material with spaces to articulate the design of the garden, much as seen in the image below.
There are early works which make use chance
elements and as such fall outside the restricted and ordered world of modality, these include "Ring" 1961, "Corona" 1962, and
"Dorian Horizon" 1966.
There is a recording of "Corona" by Roger Woodward which
demonstrates admirably the contrast between control and freedom in Takemitsu's
hands. There is no You Tube video of this, the Jim O’ Rourke version is more
restrained with the drone / improvisation contrast discussed in previous blogs
more apparent.
Images of
the graphic scores, those I have been able to find, show an artistic economy of
line and space with some musical indicators to provide recurring motifs or
approximations of motifs.
The modal interest which is the main concern of
these articles can be heard from the earliest works, "Green" contrasts
dissonant music and gentle modality. That description underplays the range of
expression in the music where he first impression one gets is the influence of Messiaen,
bird song included. Repeated hearings
bring out a wealth of detail which eventually binds into a stream of continuous
lyricism behind the orchestral fragmentation.
Reading about Takemitsu's early life there was
an appear in the lyrical quality of popular songs heard on the radio, and there
are biographical indications that Takemitsu regularly sang through his musical
ideas whilst involved in their creation. The distillation of sounds in the
final minute of the work is masterful in its economy. The recording with Knussen is available on
You Tube, where it has received less than a hundred views at this time!
The use of modality becomes increasingly refined
throughout his artistic life, with age there is refinement of style and simplicity. The restrictions placed on the use of modes will be illustrated with
examples from Les Yeux Clos II (1988). There is a score with this music so readers may follow up in greater detail the ideas presented here.
Takemitsu's music makes use of a wide range of
techniques of organisation, modes, counterpoint, and repetition in abundance,
all of which gives a clarity to the music which makes it immediately
accessible. Taking a chordal progression from Les Yeux Clos one can hear that
the motion is quite simple, a movement of parallel perfect and augmented
fourths spiced with a further semitone dissonance, the result is a series of
closely related chords lacking the precision of serial music, but beautiful and
clearly distinct as a unit for repetition and development in the work as a
whole.
Analysts have found several methods of working
around the in exact placement of notes chords and sections including reasonable
percentage levels of accuracy on one hand and non-musical accounts on the
other. Perhaps the best indicator of use
for inexperienced composers is that Takemitsu reserves the right to add and
subtract notes from collections as he pleases; the antithesis of serial
approaches, and perhaps a reaction against slavish imitation, which would be
frowned upon in the Tao!
For the composers reading this blog the
association between Cage and Takemitsu requires comment, though I will try and
keep the Zen references to the minimum (despite the fact that both Nurtan and I
have some interest in this philosophy / religion). For me the most important
musical influence lies as much in Taoism as Zen, the balance of forces in Ying
and Yang, and where there is balance, the tension created between the two
extremes. It may have been Cage that made Takemitsu aware of the musical
importance of silence, but in Japanese culture the philosophical theory would
be well understood. While silence is a
feature of Takemitsu's thinking, sustained and dying sounds (decrescendo) are most
significant, particularly in the piano works where the pedal is of considerable
importance. These long ‘pauses’ are useful for shaping the composition by
breaking the music into short paragraphs of evolving textures, they also permit
intense and complex figures to be heard and musically "examined" by
the listener.
The movement of parallel chords and similar
sounding chords is familiar to any audience of jazz music particularly from
Oscar Peterson onwards, and it is of little surprise that Takemitsu experienced
and enjoyed the sounds of jazz from an early age. Add to the mix his fondness for the music of Debussy, Faure, Frank and most
importantly Messiaen, one has no difficulty relating his ‘modern’ textures to
these roots.
As stated, the clarity and simplicity of Takemitsu's style
becomes ever more apparent in his late period, Nostalghia is one of the most
accessible of his late works. Before listening to the recording play the 0,1,4,5,8,9
hexachord and get the sound of the superimposed augmented triads in your head (use C natural for 0) and the music becomes remarkably clear to follow.
The music is a reflection on a film by Tarkovsky
of the same name, there are two short clips of the film available on YouTube
which speak volumes about pace, dwelling on a moment in time and the tension
created between sounds.
The symbolism in the second clip of making the
journey with a candle without its being extinguished may be comprehended by a practitioner
of Zen as being similar to the task of reaching for a goal (enlightenment) in
which the achievement results in the death of self. The use of Verdi’s music at
the final moment is as chilling as it is beautiful. It is of little wonder that Takemitsu wanted to write a musical commentary on this remarkable film.
Of the
modes used the octatonic mode (2nd mode of limited transposition) occurs with
some frequency, the example below is again taken from Les Yeux Clos.
It may be noted that mode 6 is
also used regularly by Takemitsu, in Forte's classification the two modes are 8-25 0,1,2,4,6,7,8,10 and
8-28 0,1,3,4,6,7,9,10. One characteristic of both modes is
that the regularity of spacing prevents hierarchical references such as found
in tonal music, as a result the music can create a sense of stillness, valuable
to his creation of contrast between paragraphs of music. There is no naivety in the use of these
modes, the placement of notes show both an awareness of articulating localised
harmonic areas and creating tension by voicing the progression of individual
phrases.
The self-imposed restriction of a thousand words
for these blogs means that a number of beautiful and remarkable extracts have
been passed over, but I hope that the blog has opened a window on Takemitsu’s
method and philosophy. Most of all as a guide to younger composers one should
take away two ideas, firstly that exact and rigorous control is not an absolute
necessity, and secondly the old adage “be true to yourself” is an essential
part of the creative process, even if it isn’t taught on academic courses.
Excellent article, and will have to definitely reread when my speaker system is not tied up. Head phones will do not so much justice. I Have bben a fan of Takemitsu for a while now,at least 3-4 decades. Thank you Ken again for a great class!
ReplyDeleteThis is a beautifully written article and I cannot help to point out that it is in the best tradition of Takemitsu's music: The distillation of an idea to its core beauty. Takemitsu's music does neither use nor needs to use escape mechanisms most of us have used from time to time: not very meaningful runs, a thrill or two to end a phrase that seems to be endless, or a format handed down over centuries. While the musical architechture, as the organising principle is an extremely important factor in any composition; It tells the ear what to hear and when,; In Takemitsu's music, the architechture is not only the organising principle of a piece; but it is the essence of its existance. That is, his music does not need conform to an expected format, such a sonata or fugue or whatever. It exists on its own terms and it defines its own aesthetic principles - not self consciously serious or deliberately clever.But, as in a garden, it exists in its surroundings with the pitches, timbres and rhythms constituting a control scheme that can be and usually is unique to the moment - i.e."that exact and rigorous control is not an absolute necessity" (From above) and "It isn't that we are alone or not alone/ whose voice do you want? mine? yours? (From "Crow with no mouth", Ikkyu Sojun (1394 - 1481) Japanese poet, musician, painter, monk and rascal.)
ReplyDeleteWe are lost where the mind can't find us
DeleteUtterly lost.
Seen from the Western point of view a catastrophe, from the Eastern one a perfect state of being. I so like duality in literature.