Tōru Takemitsu (1930-1996)
Spectral Canticle for guitar, violin and orchestra (1995)
To the Edge of Dream for guitar and orchestra (1983)
Vers, l’arc-en-ciel, Palma for oboe d’amore, guitar and orchestra (1984)
Twill by Twilight (1988)
Jacob Kellerman (guitar), Viviane Hagner (violin) Juliana Koch (oboe d’amore)
BBC Philharmonic/Christian Karlsen
rec. 2022, Philharmonic Studio, Media City UK, Salford, UK
Reviewed as a digital download from a press preview
BIS BIS2655 SACD [53]
Swedish guitarist Jacob Kellerman made quite a splash in 2020 with an engaging disc centred around that most populist of guitar concertos, Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. With this latest release, he has gone to the opposite end of the spectrum. Whilst three of the works included feature substantial and taxing guitar parts, they feature the instrument more as obbligato solos than as a soloist in a concerto in any traditional sense. Takemitsu wrote a surprising amount for the guitar, both alone and with orchestra, so it is not hard to see the appeal for guitarists in terms of the quality of the writing. Kellerman is to be commended for bravely leaving his ego at home.
Central to Takemitsu’s luxuriant, drifting scores is the somewhat tricky Japanese concept of ‘ma’ which might be described as an emptiness that is a something in itself rather than just the absence of something. Musicians in particular seldom have much trouble grasping this concept since for them silence is an integral, positive part of music. The extreme delicacy of a lot of Takemitsu’s works hovers at blurred edge between sound and silence which means that even when an instrument plays by itself alone we hear the silence, the ma, that envelopes it.
The second significant feature of Takemitsu’s music is its somewhat unusual structure. The composer likened listening to his work to someone walking around a garden. This is not music that grabs the listener by the ears but rather the sort that one immerses oneself in, music that we encounter. Whilst he developed his own unique fusion of Japanese and Western music, the third significant feature of his compositions, such an approach to structure reflects his early enthusiasm for John Cage and his innovative use of chance.
The fourth element of Takemitsu’s music that I wish to draw attention to, and the one that will most obviously strike the listener well versed in Western classical music, is the influence of two composers, Debussy and Webern. His eclectic muse was able to absorb all manner of other composers but for me those two are the most prominent. From Webern, he borrowed a crystalline precision in terms of scoring that fits with the Japanese part of his inspiration. From Debussy, his music acquired a lushness that is in many ways the characteristic feature of Takemitsu’s art.
Few composers have evoked the condition of dreaming quite as evocatively. Even when not writing explicitly about dreams – though he often did as evidenced by two of the pieces included on this recording- his music has something of the sensual, disturbed condition of a state between sleep and being awake. His music anticipates the now fashionable concept of ‘hauntology’ by being haunted by earlier music even when that music isn’t explicitly stated.
The first piece, Spectral Canticle, a typically playful Takemitsu title, foregrounds that sense of being haunted by other music. The peculiar timing of Takemitsu’s birth and childhood meant that he experienced the post war rejection of traditional Japanese culture and had to come back to Japanese music from the perspective of having embraced Western music. The result is that traditional Japanese music is another dimension of this haunting with Western music music filtered through the Japanese experience and vice versa.
This is a very late work and as the excellent sleeve notes point out, it is hard not to avoid a sense of the valedictory in its shifting moods.
A Takemitsu score is a very refined thing and the first requirement of any performance is that it should ravish the ear. A very high level of sophistication is required from the orchestra and that is what the BBC Philharmonic give us. For some time now it could argued that the BBC Philharmonic have been the pick of the crop of the BBC ensembles and the remarkable musicianship on display makes the UK government driven barbarism of proposed cuts to these orchestras even more atrocious. There is a sheen and a precision to the colouration of each note and each chord that is the equal of the biggest and best European and US orchestras.
Kellerman’s guitar playing in this opening work and on the other two works which feature him is wonderfully supple and integrated into the overall sound picture. To the Edge of Dream on one level is a rhapsodic wander through moods and textures but it has the same kind of concealed logic as a dream in that even the most strange episodes make sense within the overall canvas. Takemitsu’s music lends itself to analogies with the visual arts rather than with drama as is the case with a lot of Western art music. The sections of the music are like panels in an altar piece rather than a story being told.
Vers, L’arc-en-ciel, Palma, inspired by a painting by Miro, is the least known of the works included. It is probably the least immediately alluring of the works selected for this record. Perhaps reflecting Miro’s painting, it is harder edged, more bright sunlight than twilight.
The programme finishes with one of Takemitsu’s finest works, Twill by Twilight, another foray into in between states – between day and night, sleeping and waking. There are no soloists here but it does resemble the mood of To the Edge of Dream. It is a more restless and violent score than any of the pieces using guitar which may reflect the practical matter of the composer not wanting to swamp a fairly quiet solo instrument. The darker hints that hovered at the back of To the Edge of Dream now come to the fore. This dream state includes nightmare as well as rapture and the result is intoxicating. This new version captures these qualities as well as any recording I know. The BBC Philharmonic’s playing is sumptuous as caught in trademark BIS sound and Christian Karlsen displays deep empathy for the alluring, cryptic world of Takemitsu. All in all, a timely reminder of just how good Takemitsu’s music is.
David McDade
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