Musica che affronta il silenzio - Scritti su Toru Takemitsu - Pavia ...

Foreword
There have always been composers who have nurtured their creativity by exploiting
elements drawn from the other arts, the sciences or indeed domains of experience
which apparently have little to do with music. In our times Varèse, Xenakis and
Takemitsu, autonomously and each coming from a very different background, all combined
their musical research with aspects extraneous to music, creating synergies which
were as unexpected as they were stimulating.
In its policy of devoting a festival to each of these composers, “Milano Musica”
has made a point of organizing a study day to complement the musical events. While
the concerts undoubtedly remain the focal point for these initiatives, the different
insights provided by participants in the study day present the composers’ personalities
in a broader perspective.
The key to Tru Takemitsu’s creative research lays in the common elements
linking the antithetical cultures of East and West, which are not easily assimilated. As
he himself said, ‘Sometimes I am comforted by the two worlds of East and West
surrounding me, but more often than not I feel torn between them’. He embarked on a
unique quest, characterised by great profundity and sensibility, in search of possible
common ground between European music and his own Oriental background, involving
not only sounds but also atmospheres and philosophies which are quite alien to the
Western tradition. I can recall in particular his fertile relationship with nature, which
inspired his major rain cycle, and his attitude towards phenomena in the atmosphere
and the movement of water.
Takemitsu was also a fine composer for the cinema, providing the sound tracks for
getting on for a hundred films. He combined his original approach with a profound
knowledge of the whole range of musical styles, using them as the dramatic situation
required: from jazz to rock, Viennese waltzes to easy listening, or again from improvisation
to pop music.