Sunday, September 18, 2011

Toru Takemitsu: selected works



Requiem for string orchestra (1957)
Quatrain for Tashi and orchestra (1975)
Sacrifice for alto flute, lute, and vibraphone (1962)
Arc for piano and orchestra
Eucalypts II for flute, oboe, and harp (1970)
For Away for piano (1973)
Water Ways for Tashi, two harps, and two vibraphones (1978)
Masque for two flutes (1959)
Undisturbed Rest for piano (1952)
Green [November Steps II] for orchestra (19
67)

Takemitsu (1930–1996) was arguably the finest composer of the second half of the twentieth century and certainly one of the very few able to have made a living purely as a composer beyond the coddling walls of academia. He wrote even for movies and television in a post-Romantic, post-Impressionist style that was luminous, modern, cosmopolitan, and extraordinarily thoughtful. The real Zen, a musical garden.

Nationalistic schools of composition criticize him for his lack of shakuhachi and koto … but nationalism was so nineteenth-century, so non-Zen. The rest of us will figure this out soon enough. Sensei Toru saw the future of artistic expression as an all-embracing universality cannot be achieved by jumbling various styles together the way that hip-hop hamsters try to sell us silly Korean cars. (The reference is to commercials for the Kia Soul aired on U.S. television in 2011.)

This archive is a compilation from seven LPs and one live performance.


Takemitsu
127.9 MB – no password



Join Rapidgator for faster downloads.
Preserve your audiocassettes and phonograph records with NCH Software’s Golden Records analogue-to-digital ripper. It even works with 45rpm and 78rpm discs on 33rpm turntables.

No comments: