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Died. 20 February 1996. (1996-02-20) (aged 65) Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Occupations. Composer. Writer. Tōru Takemitsu (武満 徹, pronounced [takeꜜmitsɯ̥ toːɾɯ]; 8 October 1930 – 20 February 1996) was a Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory.
Apr 11, 2022 · Takemitsu Tōru is famous as the composer who united traditional Japanese music and Western modernism. Today, a quarter-century after his death, his music continues to be performed in concert...
Nov 11, 2020 · Tōru Takemitsu started as a self-taught composer specializing in the western classical tradition. Find out how he eventually embraced his Japanese roots. We trace his incredible creative journey.
Nov 4, 2020 · Takemitsu has been honored as the most important composer in Japanese music history. “He was the first Japanese composer fully recognized in the west, and he remains the guiding light for the younger generations of Japanese composers.”
- Drafted Into Labor Gang
- Wrote Electronic Piece
- Composed Film Scores
- Books
- Periodicals
- Online
Born October 8, 1930, in Tokyo, Japan, Takemitsu spent his early life in China with his family. By the time he was brought back to Japan to attend school in 1938, Japanese militarism was on the rise and Western music and films were mostly forbidden. Takemitsu kept up a secret fascination with the West. After war broke out he saw a newsreel film of ...
During the 1950s Takemitsu kept up with new Western styles, mastered them quickly, and gained wider recognition. He studied the serialist music of Austrian composers Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, which rejected the idea of key and instead derived the pitch material of a piece of music from a small cell or sequence of notes announced at the be...
Despite the cutting-edge qualities of his concert music, Takemitsu never lost his appreciation for the popular songs that had originally inspired him. He was said to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Western pop music. Takemitsu found a meeting place between pop and classical music in his 93 scores for Japanese films, which he wrote with enthusiasm...
Contemporary Musicians, vol. 6, Gale, 1991. Sadie, Stanley, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., Macmillan, 2001.
Daily News (Los Angeles), May 8, 2002. Economist, March 2, 1996. Guardian(London, England), February 22, 1996; August 29, 1997. Independent(London, England), October 1, 1998. New York Times, February 21, 1996; March 3, 1996. San Francisco Chronicle, February 21, 1996. Times(London, England), February 22, 1996.
"Who Was Toru Takemitsu?," http://www.soundintermedia.co.uk/treeline-online/biog.html (February 2, 2006).
Jan 14, 2020 · Despite the apparent Western compositional influence observed in Takemitsu’s music, I believe that one of the reasons that his music is thought to sound Japanese is because it privileges the same quality perceived in other Japanese arts and Japanese language: the significance of the parts.
Tōru Takemitsu was a Japanese writer and composer on music theory and aesthetics. He was best known for combining silence with sound, through subtle innovation and delicate manipulation of orchestral and instrumental timbre.
