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

Music Facing Up to Silence. Writings on Tru Takemitsu
for in fact Takemitsu’s film music served as a proving ground for the music he wrote for
the concert hall.
The soundscape
From what has been said so far it should be clear that, in writing for the cinema,
Takemitsu showed his mastery of the full range of stylistic codes, tailoring them to the
requisites of the various films. Moreover, he was able to match the music with artificial
sounds, noises and silence. In Woman in the Dunes, a young entomologist doing research
in a desert finds himself held captive in an enormous hole in the ground, the home of a
woman employed in carting off the sand which threatens to submerge the nearby village.
Critics reviewing this film referred to the ‘natural glow of sounding music’ talked about
the singular soundscape mingling instrumental music with extensive use of percussion,
electronic music, noises and a voice off. 24 ‘Even a single sound can be film music’ was
how the composer himself defined one of the key tenets of his exploration of sound,
revealing his affinity with other European composers and directors who, in these same
years, were interested in the research of Pierre Schaeffer and other exponents of musique
concrète in France. Ruud Visschedjik pointed out that Schaeffer himself was appreciative
of the sound track of Susa no onna (Visschedjik – Wolf 1996: 29).
Peter Burt also traces the attributes of Takemitsu’s film music in part to his interest
in the innovations then taking place in France. 25 I can recall how, in a well-known article,
Pierre Schaeffer emphasised the affinities between Les nouvelles techniques sonores et le
cinéma, involving ‘le parallélisme absolu de la musique concrète et du film’. 26 This
diagnosis was promptly acted on by various enlightened directors who also made their
24 On the music in the film cf. Reynolds (1987: 480).
25 Cf. Burt (2001: 43-44). ‘The third musical notable to have brought musique concrète upon the scene was Tru
Takemitsu (1930-1996). While Mr. Takemitsu never worked with pure electronic music, he was attracted to the
inherent semantic connotations of concrete sound material, and to the sound-object connotations that linked him
to the world of graphics and visuals. As early as 1948, he began making daily tape recordings, without taking the
step of individualizing his expression within this medium. His output is mainly in the domain of film or theater
music’ (Loubet et al. 1997: 15).
26 ‘Unlike musicians, conservative by instinct and easy to be scandalized, artist which formed or preferred
plastic, dramatic or visual arts came spontaneously to musique concrète and they soon developd a strong taste
and support for it. […] Regarding cinema, one could easily say that musique concrète was something that has
been expected for a long time. We cannot wait anymore let the noises speak for themselves, together with the
images, better than any cello’ (Schaeffer 1954: 55-56). In this respect the experience of Walter Murch, the
famous American sound designer, is highly significant. ‘I came home from school one day and turned on the
classical radio station, WQXR, in the middle of a program. Sounds were coming out of the speaker that raised
the hair in the back of my neck. I turned the tape recorder on and listened for the next twenty minutes or so,
riveted by what I was hearing. It turned out to be a record by Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry – two of the
early practitioners of musique concrète. I could hear a real similarity with what I had been doing – taking
ordinary sounds and arranging them rhythmically, creating a kind of music on tape’ (Ondaatje 2002: 7).
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