TORU TAKEMITSU 60's MUSIQUE CONCRETE LP ELECTRONIC-NWW

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TORU TAKEMITSU

VOCALISM AI / CORAL ISLAND / WATER MUSIC LP

RCA Victrola 1969

Tape collage, musique concrete and electronic music experimentations by Japan's greatest Toru Takemitsu. Material from 1960-62.

Some info on the release:  Seldomly seen british original pressing on RCA Victrola of one of Toru Takemitsu's nearly complete musique concrete / electronic works from the early 60's!! Belongs to a series of "New Music" records issued by the label!! On the same collection have appeared works of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Earle Brown, Krzysztof Penderecki, Henri Pousseur, Pierre Boulez, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, Bruno Maderna, Luis de Pablo and, Luigi Nono others...

On this record, one can find early electronic experimentations from the period 1960-1962. "Vocalism Ai" (one of the most fascinating tape collage pieces i've ever listened to!) is a 72-hour tape montage of the word "Ai" (the japanese word meaning love). The sound material are the voices of one woman and one man. They repeat ai many times in different pronunciations with various intonations and different speeds!! Takemitsu manipulated the tape and the result is just astonishing!! "Water Music" composed in 1960 with musique concrete technique by Takemitsu and an engineer Junosuke Okuyama. All sound elements are ONLY water drops(reminds a lot the modern artist Aube?)!! The last piece on the record is "Coral Island" with the wonderful voice of soprano Mutsumi Masuda and Hiroshi Wakasugi. 

In 1951 Takemitsu was one of the founding members of the anti-academic Jikken K?b? ("experimental workshop"): an artistic group established for multidisciplinary collaboration on mixed-media projects, who sought to avoid Japanese artistic tradition. The performances and works undertaken by the group introduced several contemporary Western composers to Japanese audiences. During this period he wrote Saegirarenai Ky?soku I ("Uninterrupted Rest I", 1952: a piano work, without a regular rhythmic pulse or barlines); and by 1955 Takemitsu had begun to use electronic tape-recording techniques in such works as Relief Statique (1955) and Vocalism A·I (1956) (as pioneered during this period by Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz Stockhausen; see Musique concrète). During his time with Jikken K?b?, Takemitsu had already come into some contact with the experimental work of John Cage; but when the composer Toshi Ichiyanagi returned from his studies in America in 1961, he gave the first Japanese performance of Cage's Concert for Piano and Orchestra. This left a "deep impression" on Takemitsu: he recalled the impact of hearing the work when writing an obituary for Cage, thirty-one years later.This encouraged Takemitsu in his use of indeterminate procedures and graphic-score notation, for example in the graphic scores of Ring (1961), Corona for pianist(s) and Corona II for string(s) (both 1962). In these works each performer is presented with cards printed with coloured circular patterns which are freely arranged by the performer to create "the score". Takemitsu was in the forefront of the japanese avant-garde movement together with Toshiro Mayuzumi, organized the Experimental Laboratory with the aim of combining traditional japanese music with modern serial techniques. Highly influenced from composers like John Cage, Roger Reynolds, Iannis Xenakis, Toshi Ichiyanagi. Takemitsu was contemporary with japanese composers as Somei Satoh, Jo Kondo, Takehisa Kosugi, Taj Mahal Travellers, Akio Suzuki, Maki Ishii and Michio Mamiya, Toshiya Sukegawa, Yuji Takahashi and Masahiko Sato, Toshi Tsuchitori, Joji Yuasa and Toshiro Mayuzumi. Other composers in the same style could be Pierre Henry, Bernard Parmegiani, Luc Ferrari, Trevor Wishart, Alvin Lucier and of course Pendercki.  

Condition: Vinyl lies in mint condition, crystal clear and shiny, barely played. Cover lies in excellent condition showing very gentle usage (see photo).

Tracklist

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