Silence, Sound, Music – Tōru Takemitsu between Japanese tradition and European modernity

Having become famous as an ambassador of Japanese soundscapes with his November steps for biwa, shakuhachi and orchestra (1967), his oeuvre also reflects different forms of engagement with late European Romanticism, Impressionism and avant-garde through to pop music.


Sensitive to natural phenomena and at the same time a keen observer of the cities and civilisation of his homeland, his visual and musical-imaginative talent led to innovative forms of composition. His extensive film music oeuvre gave numerous great films in Japanese cinema their characteristic sound.


The Musical Instrument Museum honors a very important personality in the world of music, and makes a Berlin-specific contribution to German-Japanese cultural exchange and to maintaining the city partnership with Tokyo, where the composer lived.


Programme

• Voice for flute (1971) 
  
• Stanza II for harp and tape (1971)
  
• For away for piano (1973)
  
• And then I knew ‘t was wind for flute, viola and harp (1992)
  
• A bird came down the walk for viola and piano (1994)
  

WITH

• Ensemble Utak: Mutlu İşdar (flute), Anna Jurriaanse (viola), Cara Dawson (harp)
  
• Ljubica Stojanovic (piano)
  
• Lars Schmidtke (speaker)
  

Rüdiger Albrecht, Markus Bandur and Rainer Schmusch, who have worked intensively with Takemitsu - their publication Tōru Takemitsu: Globalisiertes Komponieren, Munich 2024 (Edition Text und Kritik) was published in 2024 - will introduce the work and life of the composer. His thinking will be presented in a reading of essays newly translated from Japanese.


(IN GERMAN)