TORU TAKEMITSU - All in Twilight : Complete Music for Solo Guitar (Franz Halász) (2000) Mp3

Austrian guitarist Franz Halász displays a fine sense of tone and pacing in this revealing overview of Takemitsu's solo guitar music. Takemitsu wrote for the concert stage in an original avant-garde idiom, created over 100 film soundtracks, and produced arrangements of Japanese folk tunes and Western popular music. This range, except for the soundtracks, is represented here. The title tracks are from the concert work All in Twilight -- Four pieces for guitar (1987), inspired by Paul Klee's painting of the same name. Here Halász's beautiful touch is shown in contrasting and subtle timbres on the composer's rich, jazz-like harmonies, sometimes brooding, sometimes in quickly flowing passages like those of the third movement. Next, the first six of "12 Songs" introduces some technically challenging, but aesthetically straightforward arrangements -- Sammy Fain's classic Secret Love, four tunes by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and George Gershwin's Summertime in which Takemitsu spectacularly manages to reduce the best orchestral parts to the limits of the guitar and to improvise in a free-flowing manner. Lennon-McCartney's Hey Jude is given some delightful new harmonies and counterpoint. Equinox (1993) follows, built on an ascending and descending curve that suggests both the circular motions of planets and the cyclic nature of the seasons. The three early Folios (1974) glide celestially with Impressionist chords, suggestions of rain, and striking re-settings of fragments from J. S. Bach. Likewise, In the Woods --Three pieces for guitar (1995) contrasts modal melodies with complex harmonies. Six more of the popular "12 Songs" follow; especially notable are the snappy runs of Converse's What A Friend (We Have in Jesus) and a strangely nostalgic setting of Degeyter's The Internationale. The concluding piece is a lovely arrangement of Reed and Mason's The Last Waltz. by "Blue" Gene Tyranny
Tracklist:
Subete wa usuakari no naka de (All in Twilight)
1. I. --2:34
2. II. Dark 2:48
3. III. --1:41
4. IV. Slightly Fast 2:17
Gita no tame no juni no uta (12 Songs for Guitar)
5. Secret Love (Sammy Fain) 2:22
6. Yesterday (John Lennon and Paul McCartney) 3:03
7. Hey Jude (John Lennon and Paul McCartney) 3:00
8. Michelle (John Lennon and Paul McCartney) 3:00
9. Here, There and Everywhere (John Lennon and Paul McCartney) 2:58
10. Summertime (George Gershwin)3:33
11. Equinox 4:48
Folios
12. I. --2:11
13. II. --2:21
14. III. --2:21
Mori no naka de (In the Woods)
15. I. Wainscot Pond - after a painting by Cornelia Foss 2:58
16. II. Rosedale 3:18
17. III. Muir Woods 4:21
Gita no tame no juni no uta (12 Songs for Guitar)
18. A Song of early Spring (Akira Nakada) 2:53
19. What a Friend (Charles C. Converse) 2:27
20. Amours Perdues (Joseph Kosma) 2:24
21. Over the Rainbow (Harold Arlen) 2:13
22. The International (Pierre Degeyter) 1:50
23. Londonderry Air (Irish Folk-song)2:51
LOU REED
24. The Last Waltz (arr. T. Takemitsu) 3:04
Solo: Franz Halász Soloist

TORU TAKEMITSU : Film Music By Toru Takemitsu (2006) 7xCD Box-Set / FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Tracklist:

Directed by Masaki Kobayashi

1-1 Kwaidan/Ghost Stories

1-2 Harakiri

1-3 Glowing Autumn

1-4 The Inheritance

1-5 Hymn to a Tired Man

1-6 The Fossil

Directed by Masahiro Shinoda

2-1 The Petrified Forest

2-2 Silence

2-3 With Beauty & Sorrow

2-4 The Assassin

2-5 Samurai Spy

2-6 Ballad of Orin

2-7 Clouds at Sunset

Directed by Nagisa Oshima/Susumu Hani 

3-1 Empire of Passion

3-2 The Man Who Left His Will on Film

3-3 Dear Summer Sister

3-4 The Ceremony

3-5 Bad Boys

3-6 A Full Life

Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara

4-1 The Face of Another

4-2 Summer Soliders

4-3 Pitfall

4-4 Shiroi asa

4-5 Woman in the Dunes

4-6 Jose Torres

4-7 The Ruined Map

4-8 Rikyu

Directed by Akira Kurosawa, Toichiro Narushima, Shiro Toyoda, Mikio Naruse, Shohei Imamura

5-1 Dodesukaden

5-2 Time Within Memory

5-3 Illusion of Blood

5-4 Scattered Clouds

5-5 Black Rain

Directed by Kon Ichikawa, Noboru Nakamura, Hideo Onchi

6-1 Kyoto

6-2 Alone on the Pacific

6-3 Twin Sisters of Kyoto

6-4 Nijuissai no chichi

6-5 The Kii River

6-6 Once a Rainy Day

6-7 The Call of Flesh

6-8 Wonderful Bad Woman

6-9 Shiawase

Bonus Disk

7-1 Beast Alley (Eizo Sugawa)

7-2 Saigo no shinpan (Hiromichi Horikawa)

7-3 Sabita en (Masahisa Sadanaga)

7-4 Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees (Masahiro Shinoda)

7-5 to 7-17 Conversation with Toru Takemitsu

Notas

Disks 1 to 6 were previously available separately. Disk 7 is a bonus disk exclusive to this box.

TORU TAKEMITSU : Orchestral Works I • Visions · November Steps (1992) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Tracklist:
1    Requiem for Strings-1957    9:21
2    November Steps (For Biwa,Shakuhachi and Orchestra) 19:50
Biwa – Kinshi Tsuruta
Shakuhachi – Katsuya Yokoyama
3    Far Calls,Coming far (For Violin and Orchestra) 1980 14:46
Violin – Yuzuko Horigome
4    Visions for Orchestra-pt 1,Mystere    5:40
5    Visions for Orchestra-pt 2,Les yeux clos    6:40
Credits:
Conductor – Hiroshi Wakasugi
Orchestra – Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra

TORU TAKEMITSU : Orchestral Works II • Gémeaux · Dream · Window · Spirit Garden (1995) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Tracklist :

    Gémeaux    

1    I - Strophe    6:58

2    II - Genesis    9:00

3    III - Traces    6:17

4    IV - Antistrophe    7:45

5    Dream/Window    14:07

6    Spirit Garden    15:05

Credits:

Composed By, Liner Notes – Toru Takemitsu

Conductor – Hiroshi Wakasugi

Contractor – Ryusuke Numajiri

Oboe – Masashi Honma

Orchestra – Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra

Trombone–ChristianLindberg

TORU TAKEMITSU : Orchestral Works III • Autumn · A Way A Lone II · I Hear The Water Dreaming · Twill By Twilight (1997) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Performed by various soloists with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ryusuke Numajiri. Recorded both in analog and digital versions in the Japanese double-CD release. "Twill by Twilight" is a harmonically and timbrally lush work, which often evokes the tone painting breadth of Debussy and the crystalline delicacy of Webern, an outpouring of "pastel coloring...reminders of the transient nature of twilight, before the coming night and after the sunset" (Takemitsu). It is dedicated to "the memory of my dear friend Morton Feldman." Takemitsu described the work's sub-structure as developed "through strictly measured musical units, through what might be called musical principles before a melody is constituted or before a rhythm is formed." This is a very apt metaphor applicable to Morton Feldman's own compositional style. The small and broad cyclicism of the rhythm patterns in Takemitsu's work is however much more hidden -- a kind of phased, elastic, non-clockwork repetition with imaginative variations. The brilliant orchestration contains many unique details, some of which are difficult to hear in a recording but greatly enrich the concert hall's acostic space. New instrumental combinations abound -- for example, harps in unison with French horns, or a surprising, delicately interruptive chord constituted of antique cymbal, bass drum, piano in its extreme ranges, viola harmonics and double bass. The emotional texture breaths with large sonorities, is pleasantly awakened by unusual and unexpected timbres, and is confirmed in a human warmness and quiet confidence (especially by the concluding chordal sequence). "Blue" Gene Tyranny

Tracklist:
1    Autumn - Into The Fall After A Little While - For Biwa, Shakuhachi & Orchestra [1973] 16:21
Biwa – Kakujo Nakamura
Shakuhachi – Katsuya Yokoyama
2    A Way A Lone II - For String Orchestra [1981]    14:18
3    I Hear The Water Dreaming - For Flute And Orchestra [1987] 11:35
Flute – Hiroshi Koizumi
4    Twill By Twilight - For Orchestra [1988]    10:56
Credits:
Composed By – Toru Takemitsu
Conductor – Ryusuke Numajiri
Orchestra – Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra

TORU TAKEMITSU : Orchestral Works IV • Coral Island for Soprano and Orchestra (1998) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Performed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Yuzo Toyama with soprano Rie Hamada. A beautiful digital recording of several rarely performed works by Takemitsu (the soprano part of the marvelous "Coral Island" is very difficult, for example, and the "Archipelago S" is for an unusual ensemble of instruments). Many of the subtleties of Takemitsu's writing are lost in recording (for example, subtle harmonics behind more foreground material), but the engineers made a good effort here. The title of "Archipelago S." for 21 players describes an imaginary archipelago made up of five real islands widely separated in the natural world, each island's name beginning with an "S": islands in Stockholm, Seattle, and the Seto Inland Sea of Japan. The composer imagined the islands "calling out to each other across the great distance separating them...experienced as a metaphor for the universe." The orchestra is divided into five sections and dispersed throughout the concert hall: three ensembles and two independent clarinets on the left and right sides of the space. Each of the five sections describes the five islands: "I mentally sketched the beautiful scenes of each island until gradually a clear musical theme took shape." Although this is one of the most soloistically melodic of Takemitsu's concert pieces, with single lines often containing several unusual and expressive ways of playing the instrument, many of the timbres suggest icy or at least barren landscapes. But there lurk some signs (and lovely ones at that) of life amongst this quiescent landscape: in brief moments the separate groups sing together in unison, and there are also a few moments of rich string writing when one can imagine sunlight suddenly illuminating the scene, and all of the "islands" join in glorious full orchestral passages. "Corona II" for strings is a fascinating graph work from Takemitsu's early period where he experimented with his concern for separating the distinct parameters of pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and timbre (or tone color) modulation. This separation of basic musical parameters was also an interest and compositional practice of the composers of the '50s and '60s, both composers who wrote strict serialist music and composers who created freer forms with elements of spontaneous improvisation, chance, indeterminacy, group, and theater-work composition, and so on. In Takemitsu's piece, the performers freely choose a pitch which they constantly play throughout the piece and do not change. The changes are all made in the dynamics, timbre, and manner of playing that pitch. These changes are read from a score consisting of colored plastic sheets which have modulations of coloration (similar to many scores of John Cage, and later of Karlheinz Stockhausen, which used color as a notational symbol, and used overlaid transparent plastic sheets in order to shift notational symbols). "This is a kind of study for grasping single sounds as full and vital entities" (Takemitsu) "Blue" Gene Tyranny

Tracklist :
1    The Dorian Horizan [1966]    9:14
Coral Island - For Soprano & Orchestra [1962]
2    Accumulation 1    2:46
3    Poem 1    3:20
4    Accumulation 2 With "Corona 2 For Strings"    2:26
5    Poem 2    3:52
6    Accumulation 3    2:37
7    A Flock Descends Into The Pentagonal Garden [1977]    13:14
8    Archipelago S. For 21 Players [1994]    13:37
9    Appendix: Corona 2 For String(s) [1962]    1:34
Créditos
Composed By – Toru Takemitsu
Conductor – Yuzo Toyama
Orchestra – Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra
Soprano Vocals – Rie Hamada (tracks: 2, 4)

TAKEMITSU : Cantos (Richard Stoltzman) (1994) FLAC (tracks), lossless

 All tracks & credits

TAKEMITSU : Rain Tree : The Complete Solo Piano Music (Noriko Ogawa) (1996) FLAC (tracks), lossless

All tracks & credits

TAKEMITSU : A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden (TASHI) (2005) FLAC (tracks), lossless

Until the launch of Deutsche Grammophon's Echo 20 21 series, many to most of the excellent recordings of contemporary music the esteemed German label made from the 1950s through the 1970s had gone AWOL from the active catalog. That Deutsche Grammophon had anything to offer in terms of Takemitsu may come as a surprise to some, so long has it been since this material has been available. Yet A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden is the fourth Takemitsu release on Echo 20 21 since the inception of the imprint in 1998, more discs than for any composer in the series. A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden features Seiji Ozawa's 1977 and 1978 recordings of Quatrain and the popular title work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, both then premieres.

Takemitsu's adherents will want this automatically, and yet there are other reasons to love Deutsche Grammophon's A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden. These excellent orchestral performances come not only as a revelation to the benefit of Takemitsu, but also for Ozawa, as well. At about the time he stepped down as director of the Boston Symphony, critics were blaming Ozawa for practically everything up to and including bad weather in Boston. Yet he had outstanding abilities in such music, and although other recordings of A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden have come along since, none has been nearly as good as this one, and features the outstanding chamber group Tashi.

The filler is a surprise -- rare recordings of Takemitsu's early chamber music made for Polydor's Japanese affiliate in 1969. These pieces; Stanza I, Sacrifice, Ring, and Valeria, possess a "keeping up with the Joneses" quality in terms of demonstrating solidarity with the hyper-serialist trends then current in Darmstadt. Though even as Valeria strongly recalls the early music of Boulez, there are parts that are more reminiscent of Takemitsu's film music of that time. Additionally, it is a delight to hear the young Keiko Abe, playing vibes this time, and Yuji Takahashi playing an acetone organ of the kind popularized in Italian films of the early '60s.  by Uncle Dave Lewis   

Tracklist  

1 Quatrain 17:02

Cello – Fred Sherry

Clarinet – Richard Stoltzman

Conductor – Seiji Ozawa

Orchestra – Boston Symphony Orchestra

Performer – Tashi

Piano – Peter Serkin

Violin – Ida Kavafian

2 A Flock Descends Into The Pentagonal Garden 13:08

Cello – Fred Sherry

Clarinet – Richard Stoltzman

Conductor – Seiji Ozawa

Orchestra – Boston Symphony Orchestra

Performer – Tashi

Piano – Peter Serkin

Violin – Ida Kavafian

3 Stanza I 7:11

Conductor – Hiroshi Wakasugi

Guitar – Harumi Ibe

Harp – Mari Nagasako

Mezzo-soprano Vocals – Yonaku Nagano

Piano, Celesta – Yuji Takahashi

Vibraphone – Keiko Abe

4 Sacrifice 6:25

Conductor – Hiroshi Wakasugi

Flute [Alto] – Ryu Noguchi

Lute – Mitsuhiko Hamada

Vibraphone, Cymbal [Antique] – Keiko Abe

5 Ring 9:31

Conductor – Hiroshi Wakasugi

Flute – Ryu Noguchi

Guitar [Terz] – Harumi Ibe

Lute – Mitsuhiko Hamada

6 Valeria 6:28

Cello – Yoshio Hattori

Conductor – Hiroshi Wakasugi

Guitar – Harumi Ibe

Organ [Electric] – Yuji Takahashi

Piccolo Flute – Ryu Noguchi, Takeshi Koizumi

Violin – Saburo Ueki

Gidon Kremer & Naoko Yoshino - Insomnia (1999) FLAC (tracks), lossless

This is a handsome-looking compact disc release, with strikingly muted graphics in cool purple tones, featuring Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer and Japanese harpist Naoko Yoshina. Here the pretty graphics go a little too far: the buyer finds no listing of compositions on the outside of the package and has no way of knowing what is played aside from a bare mention of the names of the 11 composers featured. That's where the All Classical Guide comes in. The works were all written in the twentieth century. They are: Michio Miyagi's Haru no umi (Ocean in Spring, a calming, melodic piece); Kaija Saariaho's Nocturne for violin solo (a somewhat avant-garde coloristic piece); Toru Takemitsu's Stanza II for harp and tape (also pretty far out and very Japanese-sounding); Yuji Takahashi's Insomnia for violin, voices, and kugo (strange, but oddly soothing); a movement from Satie's Le fils des étoiles as arranged by Takahashi (austere); Jean Françaix's Five Little Duets (100 percent charming); the Étude for violin from Richard Strauss's Daphne (also charming); Six Melodies by John Cage (simple and pleasant); Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel (even simpler and not startling); Nino Rota's love theme from The Godfather (you know this one); and the final movement from Schnittke's Suite in the Old Style (gently Classical except for one deliberately horrendous dissonance). So there you have the emotional progression of this carefully planned album. Much of it could cure insomnia; three or four pieces could cause it. The mood is nocturnal throughout. The recording was made in 1996 in Kioi Hall, Tokyo, with Wilhelm Hellweg as producer and engineer. It completely succeeds in what was intended; the microphones are close enough to Kremer that bowing sounds are very evident, but apparently only when the producer wants them to be.  by Joseph Stevenson 

All tracks

Harp – Naoko Yoshino
Violin – Gidon Kremer

TAKEMITSU : Piano Works (Izumi Tateno) (2003) FLAC

Tracklist
Uninterrupted Rests
1 I Slowly, Sadly And As If To Converse With 2:58
2 II Quietly And With A Cruel Reverberation 3:00
3 III A Song Of Love 1:49
4 Piano Distance 4:32
5 For Away 7:24
6 Les Yeux Clos 7:27
7 Les Yeus Clos II 7:20
8 Rain Tree Sketch 3:45
9 Rain Tree Sketch II 5:14
Litany
10 I Adagio 4:54
11 II Lento Misterioso 6:30
Credits
Composed By – Toru Takemitsu
Piano – Izumi Tateno

AKI TAKAHASHI – Piano Space = 高橋アキの世界 (1973-2009) 3CD | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Tracklist + Credits :

TASHI - Tashi Plays Takemitsu [6 tracks] (1994) lp / FLAC

 Tracklist 
A Quatrain II 16:35
Cello – Fred Sherry
Clarinet – Richard Stoltzman
Piano – Peter Serkin
Violin – Ida Kavafian
B1 Water Ways 9:57
Cello – Fred Sherry
Clarinet – Richard Stoltzman
Harp – Barbara Allen , Nancy Allen 
Piano – Peter Serkin
Vibraphone – David Frost (2), Richard Fitz
Violin – Ida Kavafian
B2 Waves 10:49
Bass Drum – David Frost
Clarinet – Richard Stoltzman
Horns – Robert Routch
Trombone – Richard Chamberlain , Roland Borror
B3 Fantasma-cantos  17:28
B4 I Sehr Massig 2:43
B5 II Sehr Schwungvoll 2:18
Credits
Composed By – Toru Takemitsu
 Ensemble – Tashi
 Notes
Barbara Allen, Nancy Allen, Richard Fitz, Robert Routch, Richard Chamberlain, Roland Borror are guests.

TORU TAKEMITSU [1930-1996]

TASHI - Tashi Plays Takemitsu [6 tracks] 

1994 / LP / FLAC / scans

O Púbis da Rosa