Beyond November Steps: Takemitsu's Other Double Concertos; and Vagabond Concerto: A Composition for Shakuhachi and Orchestra
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2023
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In the 1960s, composer Tōru Takemitsu (1930-1996) drew international acclaim by way of dueling identities: as a member of the Western avant-garde, and as a Japanese artist daring to join non-Western instruments with orchestra in November Steps. To the dismay of certain Modernists, he then moved past the confines of these identities in search of a unique voice and a hallmark vocabulary, which he achieved by the 1980s with an identifiable toolkit of recurring orchestrations and structural conceits. It is the premise of this analysis that some of his most accomplished work dates from this period; that among this work, the “concerto” may best represent his mature aesthetic; and that these works deserve more attention, both in scholarship and in the concert hall. The study proceeds from a biographical context, highlighting the concepts of Takemitsu’s pluralist vision, then lays out the toolkit of devices which lend his mature work its trademark sound. An overview of this vocabulary then serves as springboard to the in-depth analysis of five double concertos: Gémeaux (1971-1986), Autumn (1973), Toward the Sea II (1981), Vers, l’arc-en-ciel, Palma (1984) and Quotation of Dream (1991), works which run the gamut of Takemitsu’s formal experimentations, while maintaining a unified vocabulary. An afterword offers a brief argument for the broader adoption of this concept of “vocabulary” as a paradigm for addressing a plurality of music theories in the 21st century.
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Musical composition, Music theory, Autumn, Gémeaux, Quotation of Dream, Toward the Sea, Vers l'arc-en-ciel Palma
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