Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu died 10 years ago, and as often happens, musicians now seem to be re-
evaluating his music. One of the biggest local tributes ever came with a pair of back-to-back concerts by the Colorado Chamber Players and guests.
Trying to pin down his particular brand of music can be daunting, even after the all-
Takemitsu affair Sunday in the Recital Hall of the University of Denver’s Newman Center.
Descriptions abound, such as “meditative,” “evoking nature” and “atmospheric.” Not bad for a composer who was largely self-taught. Western audiences might be misled by his highly allusive – and elusive – titles. The program Sunday included “Rocking Mirror Daybreak,” “Orion,” “A Way Alone,” A Bird Came Down the Walk,” “All in Twilight” and “And Then I Knew ‘Twas Wind. …”
How Japanese. But Takemitsu relied on Western models – Claude Debussy in particular, and later, Olivier Messiaen. “Wind” comes from Emily Dickinson.
But he also liked Duke Ellington, and scored many films including some for the legendary Akira Kurosawa (“Ran” and “Dô Desu ka Den,” which is the Japanese analog for the clickety-clack sound of trolley wheels on steel tracks – seemingly tailor-made for Takemitsu).
“Wind” is an overt tribute to Debussy. Julie Duncan Thornton (flute), Barbara Hamilton-Primus (viola) and Lynne Abbey-Lee (harp), offered this 1992 work as the most immediately accessible piece of the evening, its feel and language almost familiar – except for harp microtones and the timbre of flute and viola in parallel.
Takemitsu’s pace is most often deliberate, even slow. At times his music seems static. “But it gets under your skin,” said Hamilton-Primus, as evidenced in her account of “A Bird Came Down the Walk” (1994) with guest pianist Andrew Cooperstock. It has Messiaen-like scatters of seeming bird song.
Violinists David Waldman and Paul Primus had the walking-on-eggs task of presenting “Rocking Mirror Daybreak” and its hard-to-capture sensibilities – an inspiration from poets
Thomas Fitzsimmons and Makoto Ooka, with an overlay of composer Béla Bartók.
“A Way Alone,” for string quartet (with guest cellist Judith McIntyre), was once described as like “looking at a flower for 14 minutes.”
One doesn’t think of Takemitsu as intense, but McIntyre and Cooperstock made “Orion” seem so. Assured and authoritative guitarist Masakazu Ito offered the solo “All in Twilight,” with rapt attention to its forthright sonorities.
Putting together a program such as this shows the value of the Colorado Chamber Players.
Glenn Giffin, now retired, covered classical music and dance for The Denver Post for 32 years.
