Tohru Takemitsu Essentials

Western contemporary and traditional Japanese music merge to form the unique sound of Tōru Takemitsu’s exquisitely beautiful compositions. After the Second World War, having been conscripted in his teens to work for Japan’s military, he embraced Western culture and made his way as a largely self-taught composer, inspired by recordings of works by, among others, Claude Debussy and Olivier Messiaen. His Requiem for String Orchestra, written while he was gravely ill, opens the door to his music’s intensity, while the much later From Me Flows What You Call Time fires the imagination with its multilayered montages of instrumental colours. Prepare to be enchanted by the power of Takemitsu’s many film scores, including the Mahlerian soundtrack to Akira Kurosawa’s Ran, and his hypnotic gagaku compositions, an ancient form of Japanese classical music.