The First Dig

I've been busy for the past month or so reading books, articles, reviews, etc. on my boyz (Teshigahara, Abe, and Takemitsu). I've found some great stuff, and I think I've just about found everything I'll need to start writing. Well, maybe. I'm fairly intimidated by the idea of this paper, as it's inevitably going to be big and sprawling. One thing's fo sho: I've never written a paper of this size. I hope this blog will help me organize my research; after all, it's focus that I need. Feel free to make any comments about, well, anything.
Here we go.
Even though I've got several books to work with, today I'll be focusing on one: The Music of Toru Takemitsu, by Peter Burt. This book is crucial to my paper. Also, it's from a school outside of our liberry network, so I've gotta get crackin'--I'm not gonna have no late fines with this guy.
Notes on The Music of Toru Takemitsu:
Intro:
--In addition to being a composer, Takemitsu was a festival organizer, writer on aesthetics, author of detective novels, celebrity chef on Japanese TV (pg. 1)
--wrote music for concert hall, film, theater, TV and radio (1)
--book focuses on only a small area of Takemitsu's versatile creativity (1)
--composer's career falls into three "periods"; the transition from "second" to "third" was so dramatic that it has been hard for commentators to miss it (1).
--Yoko Narazaki speaks of a "change from an 'avant-garde' to a 'conservative' style" around the end of the 1970s (1)
--Burt feels that there is a second, if less spectacular distinction to be made b/w the first and second periods. This is clear from the differences in the juvenelia from the first decade of his composing career (the 1950s onwards), and the works which succeeded them from around the turn of the 1960s (2)
--in the early works, Takemitsu's style showed very clear influences from American and European composers--these influences are much more pronounced in this period (2).
--influenced by John Cage, and through him, was influenced by traditional Japanese music (2).
--around 1960, Takemitsu began to be influenced by traditional Japanese instruments and the discovery of "nature" in music, a discovery in which the composer was encouraged by his encounter with John Cage (2)
--Takemitsu's writing about music rarely gives away any technical information about his musical construction or contains music-type examples, concerning itself instead with abstract philosophical problems expressed in a flowery and poetic language. Many commentators--particularly in Japan--have followed this example with dealing with music on this level, rather than venturing into the denseness of his actual compositional method (2-3).
--to understand Takemitsu's achievement, it is necessary to see him not only in relation to the international Western music scene, but also in relation to the aesthetic preoccupations of the composers who preceeded him in the decades since Western music was first introduced in Japan (3).
Chapter 1:
--It was first with Shuji Izawa (1851-1917), an aristocratic Ministry official, that one catches sight of a yearning to somehow synthesize Japanese and European musics in a higher unity. How and why? He went to America to examine American pedagogical methods, and to study music in the Boston Music School, and upon his return to Japan, he recommended that a "Music Study Committee"--effectively a small music college--was formed. He also set forth his ideals for musical education in his "Plan for the Study of Music." In this he proposes three general theories of how to study. The third of which he favored: the possibility of "taking a middle course between the two views [excluding either Japanese or Western culture through music], and by blending Eastern and Western music establish[ing] a new kind of music which is suitable for the Japan of today" (10).
--Japanese composers soon began to receive Western-style music training. This began to become apparent through music quickly (11).
--how Debussy was exposed to Asiatic music at the 1889 Paris Exposition. Led to an epiphany in his approach to composition (13).
--Takemitsu and others were influenced by Debussy and discovered Asiatic styles through him (as well as through Cage). He himself later described this as "reciprocal action"--musical art which was reimported to Japan (14).
--Yasuji Kiyose (1899-1981) is usually cited as Takemitsu's only formal teacher. He was one of the composers who formed the Shinko Sakkyokuka Renmei ("Progressive Composers' League") in 1930. Composers in this league operated in a nationalistic way, similar to the way, say, Bartok and Kodaly worked in Hungary, etc. (15).
--Music by nationalistic composers (minzokushugi composers) seems to have enjoyed considerable success/popularity in pre-war Japan.
--other composers, such as Yoshiro Irino, Makoto Moroi and Minao Shibata experimented with works employing traditional Japanese instruments, often in combination with Western resources (17).
--Jikken Kobo--the "Experimental Workshop." Its presence on the map of the post-war Japanese music marks one of the beginnings of the emergence of a true avant-garde, or an alternative to "academic" tradition or "nationalist" rhetoric. One of the founding members of this group was Takemitsu. At the time his had just celebrated his 21st b-day (19).