Program #23, October 5 2000: Featured composers series, part I: Works of Toru Takemitsu.

This recently-deceased (1996) composer, who would have been 70 this coming Sunday, manifested a variety of compositional faces and produced a good deal of worthwhile music, synthesizing multiple artistic/cultural influences to forge an aesthetic uniquely his own. We spent the first and second hours examining how his work so often centered on a kind of "dynamic stillness", in each hour taking a different path through his music to make the same point. In the last hour, we filled in that skeleton a bit by touching (in greater detail) on some of Takemitsu's pet themes and favorite musical approaches: water and wind, the musical legacy of France, film scoring, works for the flute.

Hour Artist Title Date Performers Album Label Number
(Click hyperlinks for special notes, to see more about artists, connect to record labels, and more!)
12m Einstürzende Neubauten Wüste 1992   Tabula Rasa Mute 61458-2
Toru Takemitsu November Steps 1967 Kinshi Tsuruta, Katsuya Yokoyama; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (cond. B. Haitink) Bernard Haitink: Live/The Radio Recordings Radio Netherlands 97014
Erik Satie (arr. Toru Takemitsu) Le Fils des Étoiles 1975 Patrick Gallois, Fabrice Pierre I Hear the Water Dreaming Deutsche Grammophon 453 459-2
Toru Takemitsu Corona (London version) 1962 Roger Woodward Corona, For Away, etc. Decca HEAD 4 (LP)
1a Toru Takemitsu Suite from the Woman in the Dunes soundtrack 1964   The Film Music of Toru Takemitsu Nonesuch 79404-2
Toru Takemitsu Seasons 1970 Stomu Yamash'ta Henze / Takemitsu / Maxwell Davies London 430 005-2
Toru Takemitsu From Me Flows What You Call Time 1990 BBC Symphony Orchestra (cond. Andrew Davis) Live From the Proms, vol. II, no. 11 BBC Music BBC MM123
2a Toru Takemitsu Toward the Sea II 1981 Patrick Gallois, Fabrice Pierre; BBC Symphony Orchestra (cond. A. Davis) I Hear the Water Dreaming Deutsche Grammophon 453 459-2
Toru Takemitsu And Then I Knew 'Twas Wind 1992 Patrick Gallois, Pierre Henri Xuereb, Fabrice Pierre I Hear the Water Dreaming Deutsche Grammophon 453 459-2
Toru Takemitsu Music of Training and Rest from the José Torres soundtrack 1959 The London Sinfonietta (cond. J. Adams) The Film Music of Toru Takemitsu Nonesuch 79404-2
Toru Takemitsu Funeral Music from the Black Rain soundtrack 1989 The London Sinfonietta (cond. J. Adams) The Film Music of Toru Takemitsu Nonesuch 79404-2
Toru Takemitsu Waltz from the The Face of Another soundtrack 1966 The London Sinfonietta (cond. J. Adams) The Film Music of Toru Takemitsu Nonesuch 79404-2
Toru Takemitsu Air 1995 Patrick Gallois I Hear the Water Dreaming Deutsche Grammophon 453 459-2
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