Takemitsu, Requiem

The Japanese composer Tōru Takemitsu (1930-1996) became Japan’s leading composer of the 20th century writing with a predominantly Western musical vocabulary.

He was conscripted into the Japanese army toward the end of World War II when he was a mere adolescent. At the end of the war, he worked for a time with the U.S. occupational forces and was exposed to Western music through the Armed Forces Network. He began composing at the age of 16 and remained largely self-taught throughout his career.

The Requiem, a relatively early work composed in 1957, caught the attention of Igor Stravinsky while Stravinsky was touring Japan. Shortly thereafter, Takemitsu had a commission from the Koussevitsky Foundation in the U.S. for his composition Dorian Horizon. The premiere of that work was conducted by Aaron Copland.

I first encountered Takemitsu’s music in the early 1970s when he had moved into a more avant garde style. But his music, for me at least, has an allure that is sometimes missing with other avant garde composers. He was influenced by John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, but he was also something of a disciple of Claude Debussy and Olivier Messiaen, both of whom had an interest in oriental music.

Takemitsu initially had something of an aversion to traditional Japanese music arising from his war experiences, but he developed an interest in it around 1970, midway through his career.