The Classical Music Book

314

I DESIRE TO CARVE ... A

SINGLE PAINFUL TONE AS

INTENSE AS SILENCE ITSELF

NOVEMBER STEPS ( 1967 ),

TORU TAKEMITSU

T

akemitsu composed

November Steps in his

secluded private cottage

on Mount Asama in central

Honshu, Japan’s main island. The

only materials he had with him

were Debussy’s original manuscript

piano scores of Prélude à l’après-

midi d’un faune and Jeux, with

their multicolored notation and

handwritten commentaries.

In November Steps, Takemitsu

employs traditional Japanese

instruments—the shakuhachi

(an end-blown flute) and biwa (a

short-necked lute). His aim in this

piece was not to blend their sounds

into the Western orchestra but to

contrast their timbre with those of

a Western ensemble. He succeeded

in reviving the essential nature of

the Japanese instruments, creating

a striking intensity against the

orchestra’s sound stream, couched

in a unique tone language.

A cosmic world of music

Takemitsu was first exposed

to Western Classical music,

represented by such figures as

Debussy, Alban Berg, and Olivier

Messiaen, during military service

in World War II. He would later

create his own cosmic world

of music that infused these

influences with Eastern and

Japanese sensitivity. Inspired by

Debussy’s rare intuition, Takemitsu

came to recognize the “light and

The traditional biwa, used in

November Steps, is played here in 2007

in New York by Junko Tahara to music

by Joji Yuasa, an early member of

Takemitsu’s experimental workshop.

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

East meets West

BEFORE

1903 Inspired by East Asia,

and the European trend of

exoticism, Claude Debussy

mimicked Chinese and

Japanese melodies in Pagodes,

the first movement of his

Estampes (Engravings).

AFTER

1991 In his Quotation of

Dream, subtitled “Say Sea,

Take Me,” from a poem by

Emily Dickinson, Takemitsu

quotes Debussy’s La Mer.

1998 Chinese American

composer Tan Dun dedicates

his Water Concerto for Water

Percussion and Orchestra to

the memory of Takemitsu.

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