Takemitsu, Toru (tō`r

täkā`mĭts

), 1930–96, Japanese composer, b. Tokyo. In 1951 in Tokyo Takemitsu organized the Experimental Workshop, the first of several avant-garde groups he founded. Championed by Igor Stravinsky Stravinsky, Igor Fedorovich (ē`gər fyô`dərô'vyĭch strəvĭn`skē)
..... Click the link for more information. , he was the first contemporary Japanese composer to become known in the West. In 1970 he designed the "Space Theater" for the exposition in Osaka. His best-known work is the Requiem (1958) for strings. His other compositions include Undisturbed Rest (1952) for piano, Dorian Horizon (1967) for string orchestra, the piano trio Between Tides (1993), and many other works of chamber and orchestral music. He is also noted for the dozens of evocative scores he wrote for Japanese films, e.g., Woman in the Dunes (1964), Ran (1985), and Black Rain (1989). Takemitsu successfully combined serial music serial music, the body of compositions whose fundamental syntactical reference is a particular ordering (called series or row) of the twelve pitch classes—C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B—that constitute the equal-tempered scale.
..... Click the link for more information. and other techniques from Europe and the United States with traditional Japanese modalities.

Bibliography

See C. Zwerin, Music for the Movies: Toru Takemitsu (film, 1995).

Takemitsu, Toru

(born Oct. 8, 1930, Tokyo, Japan—died Feb. 20, 1996, Tokyo) Japanese composer. In 1951 he founded Tokyo's Experimental Laboratory to promote an integration of Japanese music with contemporary European developments. Soon acknowledged as Japan's leading composer, he explored avant-garde techniques such as serialism, aleatory music, graphic notation, and electronic music, combining them with traditional Japanese motives and instruments (e.g., November Steps, 1967, for biwa, shakuhachi, and orchestra). He created an individual sound world in which silence itself is an important element.