Search - Toru Takemitsu, Noriko Ogawa :: Toru Takemitsu: Rain Tree : The Complete Solo Piano Music

Deeply evocative piano timbres,reoccuring gentle phrases

scarecrow | Chicago, Illinois United States | 07/25/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"You may know Toru Takemitsu through his engaging and overly evocative music he has written throughout is life for the cinema. Countless film directors treasure the experience of working with Takemitsu. "If he cannot make a meaningful contribution, he doesn't" said one. And he always tries to find a point of uniqueness for his music married with the images of the film. There are times when he does submit against his wishes, as when Kurosawa insisted the "mahler music " remain in "Ran", while the old Lear-figure is surrounded by a deadly overwhelming barrage of firery-tipped arrows in a wooden castle. This same sensitivity with image imparts itself in the more abstract piano music here,covering Takemitsu's entire life. His early piano music reveals a fascination with the new musical languages on the Continent. Yet he manages to find his own voice ,always sparce and reflective. I loved here "Les yeux clos", or "closed eyes",one(1) and two(2),this music is deeply gentle,proclaiming miniature moments unobtrusively concentrated in limited registers. Simple Fifths C# and G# are reiterated at the outset in "Les yeux 1",but after lower more ponderous ones, equally soft are explored.You never sense you are moving on a fast paced track in this music,more gently swayed by non-violent breezes with a fine sense of time,slow time,where the music unfolds slowly,like a filmshort of nature where the changes are barely recognizable, a static quality here, well Takemitsu feels his music from natural metaphorical journeys, states of winds,and the play of lights. The music unfolds somewhat like a natural delicate rondo with evocative broken gentle arpeggiated timbres. Ogawa has played this music all over the world, so he reads Takemitsu very closely."