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

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Angela Ida De Benedictis
letters conserved among the material belonging to Luciano Berio, dated 15 June (the year
is unspecified but was presumably 1960 or 1961). It is surprising to learn that Takemitsu
was thinking of working at the Studio di Fonologia of RAI in Milan: 27
Dear Mr. Luciano Berio,
I have played your electronic music a number of times for my self and for friends. I
thank you and we enjoyed very much. Have you received your straw-wrapped package
like a pirate’s treasure? I hope that ancient Buddhist instruments will be reborn
in your works. I would like to hear your new works very much.
I’ll introduce my friend Mr. Kazuo Fukushima who is composer. I think you will
meet him at DARMSTADT. Please do help him. May be, he will give a lecture
about Japanese Noh music. 28
I will send my new works when I give back your tape by air mail, soon.
I would like to work at RAI’s electronic music Studio for the future.
I ask you for your kind consideration.
Thank you again for the tape.
Most cordially, Tru Takemitsu
In the correspondence and documents conserved in the archive of the Studio di Fonologia
there is, alas, no trace of any application or documentation concerning Takemitsu’s visit.
What we do know, however, is that one of the main reasons why Luciano Berio parted
company with this institution was precisely the difficulty of obtaining access to the laboratory
for foreign composers and Italians not directly involved in the RAI. 29
A second letter, less formal than the preceding one, dates from 4 April 1964 and was
written from San Francisco during Takemitsu’s first visit to America. The letter is reproduced
here in its entirety. It gives information both on his stay in America and on his
previous contacts with Berio (as well as revealing an unsuspected interest in avant-garde
Western music theatre):
27 Letter conserved, like the one cited hereafter in the text, in the Paul Sacher Foundation, Luciano Berio
Collection (by kind permission). We also place on record the existence in the Sacher Foundation of another
letter from Takemitsu to Antoniette Vischer, dated 7 March 1963, written in reply to a commission from
Vischer for a ‘short piece’ for solo harpsichord (a piece which was never actually composed).
28 This is the element which enables us to date the letter to 1961 or thereabouts, the year in which Kazuo
Fukushima attended the Ferienkurse in Darmstadt, giving a lecture on ‘No-Theater und Japanische Musik’
(cf. Borio – Danuser 1997: 609).
29 See in this respect De Benedictis – Rizzardi (2000, passim).