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

Music Facing Up to Silence. Writings on Tru Takemitsu
nation and the developments of the avant-garde. 14 We can note that Takemitsu exploited
this attribute not so much in the use of Japanese instruments, nor indeed of an unconventional
use of Western instruments. Instead it became one of the fundamental tenets of his
compositional approach: a certain sound needs time to become what it is, and during this
time it encounters hindrance and obstacles. Finally we can mention an aspect which makes
Takemitsu’s output particularly significant in terms of the questions we have been considering:
the semantic import of sound. To grasp its significance, it must be borne in mind that
the development of Western art music corresponds not only to a progressive control of the
acoustic space but also to the emancipation of music in its own right. In terms of contemporary
aesthetics we can speak of an ‘art of sound’ only once sound liberated itself from its
links with poetry and with words in general. This also released it from a referential function
(due to the words being sung or the function played by instrumental pieces in religious and
social contexts). Musical meaning took on the features of a semantic field in movement,
involving its reconstruction at each listening or verbal interpretation – and this ‘void of
sense’ has paradoxically constituted an incentive for the expressive force and semantic potential
of the newly emancipated music. In most of the Eastern traditions, on the other hand,
music is endowed with a precise meaning even when it is detached from singing. 15 We can
recognise a reference to the interaction between sound and meaning in Chou Wen-chung’s
comments on chien tzu notation, where the directions to the performer bear a precise correspondence
with moods or images from nature. In Takemitsu’s works this interaction takes
on a new form: in the titles of his compositions, in the evocation of certain images or natural
phenomena, and in the attitude of scrutiny (rather than narration or analysis) which
characterises the elaboration of sound, above all in his film compositions. Here the interpenetration
of sound and image reaches levels rarely attained in the history of cinema: the
highest degree of technology applied to artistic production – enabling the creation of audiovisual
texts on electronic support – is combined with traditional expertise concerning the
relationship between sound and meaning. Takemitsu draws on a sort of anthropological
vocabulary of sound which cuts across the East/West divide, and is able to calibrate the
elements in view of the construction of a meaning which takes place solely in the encounter
with the image.
Bibliography
Anderson, Christine (2008), ‘Immaginare l’Oriente: Elementi tibetani nella musica di
Giacinto Scelsi negli anni Sessanta’, in Giacinto Scelsi nel centenario della nascita: Atti
dei Convegni Internazionali, a c. di Tortora, Daniela, Aracne, Roma: 145-163.
14 Cf. Takemitsu (1995).
15 Cf. Picard (2005).
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