Title: Confronting silence : selected writings /
Authors: Takemitsu, Tōru; Kakudo, Yoshiko; Glasow, Glenn, 1924-; Glasow, Glenn, 1924-2002.
Publisher: Fallen Leaf Press,
Year: 1995
Subjects: Music History and criticism
Abstract: Although internationally recognized as a major twentieth-century composer, Toru Takemitsu as author is relatively unknown except to Japanese-speaking readers. Since 1960, he has written numerous essays and commentaries, most of which have been published in Japan. Confronting Silence is the first collection of his writings to be translated into English. For the present volume, he has selected writings covering a wide range of subjects: art and artists, movies, his contemporaries, nature in all of its manifestations (a favorite topic), and, of course, music - traditional and contemporary, Eastern and Western, folk music, and his own compositions and approach to composing.
Contents: Nature and music (from "A composer's diary") -- On his contemporaries. John Cage. Merce Cunningham. Jasper Johns -- Conversation on seeing -- The landscape of the score -- On music. A single sound. The distance from ud to biwa. Noh and transience. Sound of East, sound of West -- On art. Isamu Noguchi - Traveler. Redon fantasy -- A personal approach -- Notes on November steps -- Mirror and egg -- Dream and number -- People and trees -- Water. Music is life: John Cage, the elegant revolutionary. The passing of Feldman, Nono, and Messiaen -- Gardener of time.