Comments on: Sound and Vision: Takemitsu's Corona

By: JPS Sharp

JPS Sharp — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:50:23 +0000

Interesting, but when you say it takes a special kind of musician to interpret graphic scores successfully, does ‘successfully’ mean there are supposed to be standards of correctness involved? If so what are they?

Or is someone saying their performance is a realisation of the graphic score more like Daniel Libeskind just stating his Jewish Museum is a realisation of the Unfinished Symphony? (Which he does, or at least did a few years ago.)

-J

By: Matt TREYVAUD

Matt TREYVAUD — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:38:35 +0000

Yeah, Takemitsu’s film work from the 50s and 60s was just incredible: “Music of Training and Rest” from Jose Torres, the Face of Another waltz, the super-creepy Kwaidan soundtrack… meanwhile, he’s also finding time to compose Corona, everything else mentioned in the article, AND November Steps, which is like the Beethoven’s 9th of postwar gendai hogaku and kicked off a whole “shakuhachi boom” IIRC.

But the stuff I find myself listening to most is smaller in scale, like “Toward the Sea” and “Uninterrupted Rests.”

By: Beholdmyswarthyface

Beholdmyswarthyface — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 05:33:07 +0000

I’ll second that. I know next to nothing about modern Japanese “serious” music. Looking forward to more articles.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:09:25 +0000

Very enjoyable post.

As creative as the compositions you mention can get, I still enjoy the music he did for movies the most.