Takemitsu: String Around Autumn (A) / I Hear the Water Dreaming / A Way A Lone Ii

Featuring

Tadaaki Otaka
Philip Dukes
Sharon Bezaly
Noriko Ogawa
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Tōru Takemitsu

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Performer Biography

Sharon Bezaly, the flutist on this album, was chosen as 'instrumentalist of the year' by the prestigious Klassik Echo in Germany in 2002.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Toru Takemitsu, a Japanese composer working in a Western music tradition, believed that the goal of music was to move the listener, regardless of cultural background.

Performer Biography

Noriko Ogawa, the pianist, was awarded the Japanese Ministry of Education's Art Prize in 1999 for her outstanding contribution to Japan's cultural profile worldwide.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Takemitsu was interested in the intangible and philosophical aspects of Japanese musical aesthetics, such as rhythmic fluidity and the role of silence, known as 'ma' in Zen Buddhist terms.

Composer Biography

Takemitsu's first musical impressions as a child in Manchuria came from listening to his father's jazz recordings.

Compositional Technique

Takemitsu experimented with musique concrète, incorporating non-musical sounds like bird song into his compositions, and later explored atonal music and serialism.

Composer Biography

Takemitsu, largely self-taught, learned his craft by studying the music of Debussy, Franck, and Messiaen, and by keeping an open ear towards the West.