Toru Takemitsu > Quotes

“Many contemporary composers have been building walls of sounds following their own clever devices. But then, who lives inside those rooms?”
― Toru Takemitsu, Confronting Silence: Selected Writings

“...by admitting a new perception of space and giving it an active sense, is it not possible to discover a new unexpected, unexplored world?”
― toru takemitsu, Confronting Silence: Selected Writings

“A single strum of the strings or even one pluck is too complex, too complete in itself to admit any theory. Between this complex sound—so strong that it can stand alone—and that point of intense silence preceding it, called ma, there is a metaphysical continuity that defies analysis.
In its complexity and integrity this single sound can stand alone. To the Japanese listener who appreciates this refined sound, the unique idea of ma—the unsounded part of this experience—has at the same time a deep, powerful, and rich resonance that can stand up to the sound.
…the Japanese sound ideal: sound, in its ultimate expressiveness, being constantly refined, approaches the nothingness of that wind in the bamboo grove.”
― Toru Takemitsu, Confronting Silence: Selected Writings

“In Japanese we have the word ikeru, a colloquial form of iku. It has two meanings. One is "to place flowers in a vase to revive them." The other is "to bury a corpse." Isn't there something basic in this word? Isn't this combination of life and death a measure of the world? To Christ, who was executed on the hill of Golgotha, his death was a human experience. That is why there was a Resurrection. Was that a miracle? If so, the world is full of miracles.

Bashō wrote,

As you look around

There is nothing

Which is not a flower.”
― Toru Takemitsu