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

Music Facing Up to Silence. Writings on Tru Takemitsu
but of recreating it. Paradoxically, in Takemitsu’s electronic compositions nature becomes
a reality that has been experienced, not an object of potential analysis or transformation. As
he himself put it: ‘composing is giving meaning to that stream of sounds that penetrates the
world we live in’ (Takemitsu 1995a: 79). This outlook meant that in terms of electronic
experimentation (as well as in other respects), he had a different – at times even
diametrically opposed – stance to his Japanese colleagues. In commenting on the situation
of young composers in Japan, the brief reference made by Masao Hirashima in 1961 to
Takemitsu’s experimentation and music focused, not unexpectedly, precisely on this aspect
(not altogether benevolently):
Mr. Takemitsu repeated experiments in music concrete is [sic] remarkable contrast
of personality to Mr. Moroi’s attempts at electronic music. [...] For him, music has
ceased to be an abstract art, and the sound is a concrete being full of live. [...] His
Requiem for Strings is an excellent piece, very crystalline, filled with strong emotions.
I cannot help hoping, however, that he, who is apt to confine himself within
himself, will attain more open expression. (Hirashima 1961: 105)
The joint influence and rejection of the experimentation of Schaeffer can be compared to a
similarly contradictory fascination with the music of Iannis Xenakis. Over the years the
name of Xenakis recurs frequently in Takemitsu’s writings, private letters, interviews and
conversations, and his admiration for the potency of the Greek composer’s expressive
world is invariably conditioned by a sort of resistance to the ‘intellectual control’ on which
this world is based. 22 It is not that Takemitsu was immune to the fascination of numbers and
mathematics. As emerges clearly in a conversation between the two composers published in
1988 (Takemitsu – Xenakis 1988), the difference lies in the meaning given to numbers,
theoretically objective for Xenakis, subjectively intuitive for Takemitsu. To put it another
way, while for Xenakis numbers made it possible to discover values which are intrinsic to
the music, for Takemitsu they allowed him to give material ‘solidity’ to intuitive, almost
dream-like sound objects:
Basically music depends on mathematical organization. Through no fault of his own,
the composer exercises his mathematical alchemy in pursuit of universal beauty. But
our task, not limited only to music, is to reveal things that come to us through our
spiritual efforts. [...] I believe, however, that the task of the composer should begin
with the recognition and experience of the more basic sounds themselves rather than
with concern about their function. (Takemitsu 1995a: 79) 23
22
An indirect allusion to this diffidence comes from Morton Feldman (1985: 183-184). We can also recall that, on
the occasion of Takemitsu’s 60th birthday, Xenakis wrote for him Tourakemsu, performed in Tokyo in 1990.
23
We can recall that in 1987 Takemitsu published a book called Dream and Number (or. ed. Yume to Kazu,
Libroport, Tokyo, 1987).
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