"A garden never
spurns those who enter it"
This is one of the
more famous of Toru Takemitsu’s aphorisms,
for it sums up a lot of what he felt
about music. For him, a garden was a
metaphor for music, and the garden a
metaphor for life. Just as a garden
combines different textures and colours
to create a whole, so does an orchestra.
What you get from a garden depends on
yourself: Takemitsu is saying that,
if you’re prepared to enter into the
spirit of a garden, or a piece of music,
you’ll be rewarded.
For Takemitsu, being
a human meant engaging with life. He
was a cinema fanatic, watching everything
voraciously. You could pick up on emotions
whatever the language, he said, and
emotions are universal. He wrote soundtracks
for movies by Kurosawa, Oshima and Kobayashi.
In fact, it is through movies that many
people know his work – so atmospheric
and integrated into the film that it
is almost as much part of the plot.
Yet his other music is, if anything,
even more absorbing on its own terms.
He is one of the great masters of late
twentieth century music, and has a lasting,
if indirect influence on many. He is
one of the few who have successfully
integrated western and Japanese music
and created something genuinely original,
without a whiff of pastiche.
This release by the
exciting new label Explore, brings back
into circulation on CD a Decca recording
from 1973, performed by one of Takemitsu’s
devotees and friends, Roger Woodward.
Indeed this version of Corona
was realized for performance by Woodward
from an experimental score by Takemitsu
which didn’t use formal notation but
consists, according to the notes "of
five differently coloured circles containing
instructions and symbols which may be
fitted together or overlapped in any
combination … each of the five circles
concerns a different aspect or parameter
of the music: articulation, vibration,
expression, conversation." Takemitsu
places creative responsibility on whoever
performs it, because whoever plays it
has to work out the interpretation and
even orchestration themselves, and improvise.
This is in itself a daring idea, innovative
for its time, and we are fortunate to
have Woodward’s version, based on a
deep understanding of the composer’s
artistic personality.
Woodward has expanded
the material so that he plays the piano
commentary against a background of tapes
of himself playing harpsichord and organ.
The effect is wonderful because it creates
a sense of physical presence. The piano
is in the foreground, while the organ
in particular is distant, varying in
volume. The piano feels "first
person", drawing the listener in
and inviting him or her to engage with
what is happening. It’s a refreshingly
open-ended approach to creative art.
It would be fascinating to follow this
music with Takemitsu’s diagrams, but
I was quite happy just to listen intuitively.
Takemitsu wasn’t restrictive or prescriptive:
he wanted each performance to be unique,
and that involves a listener. I listened
bearing in mind the composer’s love
of nature, and his fascination with
Debussy’s impressionism. What I heard
in my imagination was a kind of experience
of nature. A short figure of dry, hollow
notes starts the piece, each group separated
by long periods of silence, so long
that you realize that the silence is
part of the composition. Like in Chinese
or Japanese painting, blank spaces aren’t
blank but exist to frame the visible
parts. Almost two minutes into the piece,
you hear a distant rumbling, and the
piano plays several series of sharp
staccatos. Gradually the rumbling reveals
itself as a kind of fugue on the organ,
where a basic pattern is repeated over
and over with minor variation. It ‘s
even more unearthly because it sounds
electronically manipulated, reverberating
with a kind of menacing drone. At times
it sounds like a distant alarm or siren.
At times, sharp dissonances cut across
the rumbling, like flashes of lightning
against a storm-laden sky. The image
of a thunderstorm is apt, for the fugue
changes form several times, as if it
were moving across a vast horizon. In
the last few minutes the rumbling dissipates
and clear, clean chords on the piano
signify a change of mood: literally
the sounds evaporate, gradually becoming
quieter and quieter until you strain
to hear the last notes. It works on
several levels. Once I listened in my
conservatory, with rain pounding on
the roof. Another time I listened in
pitch darkness, communing with the music
in a more spiritual way. You could meditate
to this music if you were so inclined.
In contrast, Far
Away is full of light. It was written
for Woodward, and this performance must
have been the premiere, since it was
recorded within a few months of completion.
Again we have diaphanous textures, single
notes separated by silences. The piano
experiments with different figures,
letting the last notes resonate over
the silences. A very early work, Undisturbed
Rest from 1952, when the composer
was only 22, concludes this disc. The
composer described it as "a dream
of western music", for it illustrates
his fondness for Debussy and Ravel.
It’s a "pure" piano piece,
exploring the possibilities of the instrument,
like a gentle, but experimental water-colour.
This isn’t music that
jumps out and hits you. You’ve got to
"enter the garden" yourself,
and as Takemitsu said, you won’t go
unrewarded. It’s a fairly short disc
at 41 minutes, but concise and concentrated.
Music as refined and sensitive as this
packs a lot into a small scale. It’s
beautiful and impeccably played by a
performer who instinctively understood
Takemitsu’s style. This recording was
made fairly early in Takemitsu’s career,
before major pieces like Rain Tree
Sketch were composed. Other recordings
are available, but Explore is doing
wonderful things reissuing this disc
so that a new generation can enjoy its
pleasures.
Anne Ozorio
see
Full Explore Catalogue
Roger Woodward (piano) 
