FORMS OF TEMPORAL EXPERIENCE IN THE MUSIC OF TORU TAKEMITSU

by

Tomoko DeguchiSeptember 22, 2005

A dissertation submitted to theFaculty of the Graduate School of

the State University of New York at Buffaloin partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Music

ii

Copyright by

Tomoko Deguchi

2005

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the following people whose

assistance and support was critical for the successful completion of my dissertation.

Special thanks first and foremost to Dr. Martha Hyde for carefully reading the entire draft

of my dissertation and providing numerous invaluable suggestions, comments and

editorial guidance. Thanks also to Dr. Charles Smith for his extremely useful advice and

comments, Dr. Michael Long for his advice and guidance, especially in the Ran

chapter, Dr. Jeffrey Stadelman for agreeing to serve on my committee after the untimely

and all too soon departure of Professor John Clough, and John Clough for his assistance

in the early versions of my Piano Distance chapter. I also greatly appreciate Dale Scott

and Bud Newcomb for their editorial assistance.

Schott Japan is greatly acknowledged for permission to reproduce excerpts of

Rain Tree. Also special thanks to my husband Ronald Keith Parks for his many hours of

proof reading, help with music examples, and his unwavering support, love, and

encouragement. And finally, I extend my thanks, love, and gratitude to my daughter

Kotone for her patience, encouragement, and for maintaining a sense of humor

throughout my studies.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

ABSTRACT vi

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER I: CONCEPTS OF TEMPORALITY, LINEARITY, AND FORM IN

THE ANALYSIS OF TAKEMITSUS MUSIC 11

CHAPTER II: REQUIEM FOR STRINGS (1957): CYCLIC-TIME FORM 41

2.1 Harmonic and Metric Ambiguities 44

2.2 Repetitions of Materials in the Melodic Line and Cyclic-Time Form 55

2.3 Conclusion 82

CHAPTER III: PIANO DISTANCE (1961): FORCE THAT BECOMES ONE

AFTER ANOTHER 86

3.1 Pitch Materials and How They are Constructed 88

3.2 Analysis of Musical Motion, Continuity, and Form 97

3.3 Conclusion 128

CHAPTER IV: RAIN TREE (1981): INTER-SUBJECTIVITY AND FORM 134

4.1 Actions and Inter-subjectivity in the Narrative of Music 139

v4.2 Analysis 145

4.3 Conclusion 180

CHAPTER V: GAZING AT TIME: NOHKAN MUSIC FOR KUROSAWAS

RAN 184

CONCLUSION 214

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 222

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 223

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ABSTRACT

This dissertation integrates the studies of my three primary interests: the concept

of time in music, how this concept of time influences the perception of form, and the

music of Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996). The analyses are based on the

standpoint that the temporal mode in Takemitsus music is primarily Western; Western in

the sense that his music is linear, has a definite beginning (but not necessarily a definite

ending), and the musical events have continuous relationships with each other. Also

given that music can only be experienced in time, the subject of time engages the issue of

musical form. Listeners can experience structure and form in Takemitsus music through

a dynamic process of form-building. The resultant form of the three compositions

examined reveals strong commonalities with Japanese sensitivities and aesthetics.

The process of form-building is utilized in the analyses of the three compositions

that are the focus of this dissertation. In Chapter II, I discuss the recurring three-note

figures in the melodic line of the Requiem that are embedded in the small and large scale

repetitions. This simulates a palindromic formation which gives rise to what I call the

cyclic-time form. I use the concept of cyclic time as a representative of Eastern

aesthetics that parallels the Requiems perception of form. Piano Distance best represents

the concept of form-building. The perception of phrase formation solely comes from the

relationships between the expectation and the retention of musical events. I make use of

the concept of Japanese consciousness, force that becomes one after another to

illustrate the phrase formation of Piano Distance. In Rain Tree, certain parts of the music

vii

come to obtain two formal functions, in which the interpretation is based on the events

happening before and after those parts. The concepts of inter-subjectivity and non-

subjectivity can be associated with the Japanese mode of narrative found in Rain Tree. In

the final chapter, I return to the topic of how time, viewed as an unending cyclic entity,

affects musical form. I analyze and explore the significance of the music of the Japanese

Noh flute (nohkan) in Akira Kurosawas film Ran, and show how Takemitsu uses flute

music and an Eastern conception of time to accommodate Shakespeares King Lear (as

retold by Kurosawa through Ran) a work that relies on Western notions of linearity and

development. I conclude that my analyses reveal that Japanese aesthetics intersect with

the perception of form in Takemitsus music.

1INTRODUCTION

This dissertation integrates the studies of my three primary interests: the concept

of time in music, how this concept of time influences the perception of form, and the

music of Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996). Takemitsu considered himself

a composer who wrote music in the style of the Western musical tradition. Although he

did not have formal training in composition, he believed he was most profoundly

influenced by Western composers such as Debussy, Messiaen, and Schoenberg.1

Takemitsu became familiar with these composers as a founding member of Jikken Kobo

(Studio of Experiments), a group of musicians, artists, and novelists, who promoted new

and experimental directions in the arts. They learned the music of recognized Western

composers, still unknown to the Japanese public, by programming their works for the

groups recitals.

In spite of these expressed intentions, Takemitsu admits that artists cannot easily

escape the cultural heritage into which they are born and raised:

I am not a composer who represents Japan, nor even a Japanese composer[composers who are intentionally conscious of having Japanese nationality andincorporate Japanese elements into their music]. Born and raised in Japan, awarethat I am influenced by its culture, even as I try to free myself from that influence,at the same time I am fully aware that is impossible.2

1 From a lecture by Toru Takemitsu delivered at Columbia University, 14 November 1989; quoted inTimothy Koozin, Octatonicism in Recent Solo Piano Works of Toru Takemitsu, Perspectives of NewMusic 29, no. 1 (1991): 124, n. 1.2Toru Takemitsu, Confronting Silence: Selected Writings, trans. and ed. Yoshiko Kakudo and GlennGlasow (Berkeley, California: Fallen Leaf Press, 1995), 142.

2Here Takemitsu professes his belief that a persons sensibility is inherent in his nature

through specific cultural values in which he was raised. Takemitsu apparently became

increasingly conscious of this sensibility as a Japanese composer later in his life, but I

will show that Japanese aesthetic values influenced his work throughout his career. He

writes for example:

There is an advantage for a Japanese composer who has studied modern Westernmusic music from a completely different culture. That is, he can view his ownJapanese tradition from within but with anothers [outsiders] eyes.3

While the compositional materials that Takemitsu uses in his music draw upon those used

by Western composers (for instance, materials derived from the octatonic collection,

whole-tone scale, and pentatonic scale4), many listeners nonetheless identify a Japanese

quality, even in pieces that do not use traditional Japanese instruments. As a Japanese

musician and scholar who has been trained in the West, I believe that the primary quality

that marks Takemitsus music as Japanese is how he controls and structures smaller

musical units or events and temporality, and how the resultant musical form reflects and

engages Japanese aesthetics. I argue that the temporal mode of Takemitsus music is

primarily Western; Western in the sense that his music is linear, has a definite beginning,

and has continuous relationships between musical events. However, unlike much Western

music his forms are not hierarchical in structure. It is this non-hierarchical nature of

Takemitsus musical forms that reflects the influence of Eastern aesthetic values. I

3 Ibid., 143.4 It is interesting that Takemitsu incorporates exotic scales adapted by Western composers that originatedfrom Western composers interest in Orientalism.

3explore the differences between Eastern and Western concepts of time in the first chapter,

as well as define my terminology, such as linear, continuation, and directedness.

Issues of time in music continue to be debated among music theorists.5 While

music is a temporal art that can exist only through time, how we perceive time is an

elusive concept that is difficult to formalize. Thus St. Augustines famous question

remains relevant: What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that

nobody asks me, but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.6 Those who

discuss the general nature of time often draw examples and images from music, since

music is perceivable only through time. For example, Susanne Langer writes that music

makes time audible, and its form and continuity sensible.7

Leonard Meyer points out the danger of placing too much emphasis on the

structure of the musical work as a single event interpreted as an integrated and

unchanging whole. He writes:

5 Recent discussion concerning musical time includes: Karlheintz Stockhausen, Momentform, Texte zurelektronischen und instrumentalen Musik (1963), Gyrgy Ligeti, Metamorphoses of Musical Form, DieReihe 7, Form-Space, trans. Cornelius Cardew (1965), Barney Childs, Time and Music: A ComposersView, Perspectives of New Music (1977), Robert Morgan, Musical Time/ Musical Space, CriticalInquiry (1979-80); Thomas Clifton, Music as Heard: A Study in Applied Phenomenology (1983); MarthaHyde, A Theory of Twelve-Tone Meter, Music Theory Spectrum (1984); George Rochberg, TheConcepts of Musical Time and Space, The Aesthetics of Survival (1984); Joel Lester, Notated and HeardMeter, Perspectives of New Music, (19856); David Lewin, Music Theory, Phenomenology, and Modesof Perception, Music Perception (19856); Christopher Hasty, On the Problem of Succession andContinuity in Twentieth-Century Music, Music Theory Spectrum (1986); Jonathan Kramer, The Time ofMusic (1988); Judy Lochhead, The Metaphor of Musical Motion: is There an Alternative? Theory andPractice (198990); Barbara Barry, Musical Time: The Sense of Order (1990); Jonathan Kramer, ed.,Time in Contemporary Musical Thought, Contemporary Music Review (1993); Christopher Hasty, Meteras Rhythm (1997); and Justin London, Rhythm in Twentieth-Century Theory, The Cambridge History ofWestern Music Theory (2002).6 St. Augustine, Confessions, Book XI, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (New York, 1977): 264, quoted in JudyLochhead, The Metaphor of Musical Motion: Is There an Alternative? Theory and Practice 14/15(1989/90): 102.7 Susanne Langer, Feeling and Form (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1953), 110.

4Too much emphasis upon the highest architectonic level not only tends tominimize the importance of meanings as they arise and evolve on otherarchitectonic levels but it also leads to a static interpretation of the musicalprocess.8

He directs his criticism against aspects of music theory that are concerned more with the

grammar and syntax of music which treats musical compositions as things, rather than as

meanings or as the dynamic experience to which it gives rise.9 Meyers main criticism

addresses the analysis of common-practice tonal music; however, the same criticism aptly

applies to analyses of post-tonal music. Similarly, Takemitsu criticizes formal

structuralism from the composers viewpoint that composers too have been steeped in

techniques, trying to grasp sounds only through their function within the system. He

believes that the task of the composer should begin with the recognition and experience

of the more basic sounds themselves rather than with concern about their function.10

Although Takemitsu exploits his own system of pitch derivation in composing, how his

music is realized in sound is more important for him.11

Exploring further Meyers perspective, I maintain that musical structure and form

in Takemitsus music result from a dynamic process that can be experienced through

time. In this dissertation, I draw upon my experience both as a performer and as a

listener. My study of Takemitsus scores, then, is not isolated from the music as it is

performed or heard. At the same time, my analysis of the music seeks associations of

musical objects or events that arise in relation to the temporal process of past, present,

8 Leonard B. Meyer, Emotion and Meaning in Music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), 52.9 Ibid, 54.10 Toru Takemitsu, Confronting Silence: Selected Writings, trans. and ed. Yoshiko Kakudo and GlennGlasow (Berkeley, California: Fallen Leaf Press, 1995), 80.11 Ibid, 114.

5and future. My goal is to better understand how Takemitsu structures time in his music

and how listeners can experience these structures.

Takemitsus music is not goal-oriented a concept often used to describe Western

tonal music in which motion is felt in one direction moving away from and resolving

into, for example, the tonic harmony. Even though Takemitsu focuses on certain pitch-

classes or sonorities in his music, he seldom establishes any central harmony or collection

comparable to that of a tonic or a tonal key. Moreover, in Takemitsus music, the sense of

climax and ending is less evident than in most Western music. Also in relation to Western

traditions, his music is less teleological in the way that it defines form. I raise many of the

same questions regarding Takemitsus music that Jonathan Kramer has raised in The

Time of Music.12 Among these questions are: How does music structure time, or how

does time structure music? How and why do compositions begin and end? How do the

concepts of past, present, and future apply to music? What is continuity, and is it optional

or necessary in music? And in comparison to Western art music, does music influenced

by Eastern thought differ in any way in structure, form, and perception? To explore these

questions, I use Takemitsus compositions, which on one level are written in the style of

the Western musical tradition that uses conventional notation of pitch and duration, and

are scored for Western instruments, but which nonetheless reflect Japanese aesthetic

values.

12 Jonathan D. Kramer, The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies(New York: Schirmer Books, 1988), 14.

6Previous studies have explored temporality in Takemitsus music, and many of

them employ traditional Japanese concepts of time and incorporate examples from the

Japanese tradition, such as the Shinto culture and the Japanese Zen master Dogen, whose

ideas attracted Takemitsus attention. Most of these previous discussions are highly

metaphorical, such as portraying the Oriental view of time in Takemitsus music as an

unchanging temporal stasis. But these earlier discussions largely neglect the issue of how

the listener experiences temporality in Takemitsus music. Despite claims of addressing

temporality, most analyses of Takemitsus music are narrowly focused on pitch

relationships. Koozin, for example, derives Takemitsus pitch materials from symmetrical

scales or collections (such as the octatonic, whole-tone, and Messiaens modes of limited

transposition) and argues that by virtue of their symmetry, the pitch structure in

Takemitsus music dissolves into a static and undifferentiated temporal field.13 Although

I do not oppose the metaphor of a static temporal background for Takemitsus music, I

support more strongly a view that posits a dynamic experience that unfolds in the

continuum of time. Here I find most useful Christopher Hastys model of phrase

formation and his concepts of duration and motion. My critique of Koozins approach

and adaptation of Hastys concepts appear in Chapter One.

My approach to Takemitsus music as a dynamic experience is influenced by the

phenomenological attitude as characterized by Thomas Clifton, who writes:

13 Timothy Koozin, Spiritual-Temporal Imagery in Music of Olivier Messiaen and Toru Takemitsu,Contemporary Music Review 7 (1993): 186.

7the most telling contribution of a phenomenological attitude is the means it offersfor uncovering and describing phenomena which are immanent in the compositionand presented by it. This is different from the more traditional purpose of analysis,which describes how certain events or compositional procedures are constitutiveof the composition.14

An in-depth discussion of the philosophy of phenomenology is outside the scope of this

dissertation. I adopt this phenomenological attitude, however, as a means of articulating

observations, which are in one sense objective in describing musical events adequately,

but subjective in another sense in addressing the temporal meanings that emanate from

the same musical events. This is the reason why it is critical to embody my subjective

viewpoints as a performer and a listener.

Given that music by necessity can only be experienced in time, temporality

naturally engages the issue of musical form. Temporality and form are closely related,

since form can only unfold in time; form here means the constructive or organizing

element in music.15 The conscious concept of musical form was developed in the

nineteenth century not to understand music of the past, but rather to teach musicians how

to compose. Consequently, discussions of form were largely prescriptive, and the abstract

forms they described served more as molds that guaranteed the degree of uniformity

needed for syntactical coherence. Given its pedagogical goals, it is hardly surprising that

nineteenth century concepts of form relied on abstraction and generalization.16

14 Thomas Clifton, Music as Heard: A Study in Applied Phenomenology (New Haven and London: YaleUniversity Press, 1983), ix.15 Arnold Whittall, Form, Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed 18 October 2005),

16 Ibid.

8However, the interpretation of the term form changed direction when twentieth-

century music was emancipated from the stability and singularity of formal

categorization. Arnold Whittall writes, The fact that there is more to composition than

form, and that discussing form separately from content in all but the most directly

technical sense is purely pedagogical, has encouraged musicological interpretation of the

musical work as a multivalent entity.17 Because music in the twentieth century became

considerably divergent, we could no longer classify a piece into one single category.

Now, when we interpret the form of a piece, we must study the individual events or

content in each musical work. The handed-down genres and forms from the previous

century tended towards fragmentation and disintegration.18 Musical form became an

entity, which can be discussed from diverse perspectives.19

In my discussion, I analyze form in Takemitsus music from the perspective of

form as a processive entity, and not merely identifying formal components, such as

phrases and sections. Judy Lochhead adopts a similar approach in order to formalize pitch

structure, employing time-like or processive models of form for the analysis of Roger

Sessions Third Piano Sonata.20 Inspired by her analysis, I consider form the result of the

17 Ibid.18 Ibid.19 Recent research concerning musical form includes: Edward Cone, Musical Form and MusicalPerformance (1968); Nicholas Cook, Musical Form and the Listener, The Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism (1987); Janet Schmalfeldt, Form as the Process of Becoming: The Beethoven-HegelianTradition and the Tempest Sonata, Beethoven Forum IV (1995); Charles Rosen, The Classical Style:Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (1997); William Drabkin, Chopin, Schenker, and Musical Form, OstinatoRigore (2000); Scott Burnham, The Second Nature of Sonata Form, Music Theory and Natural Orderform the Renaissance to the Early Twentieth Century (2001); James Hepokoski, Beyond the SonataPrinciple, Journal of the Amaerican Musicological Society (2002);20 Judy Lochhead, Temporal Process of Form: Sessions Third Piano Sonata, Contemporary MusicReview 7 (1993): 163-83.

9relationships among segments that emerge through associations to past musical events. If

Takemitsus music is influenced by his Japanese heritage, then Japanese aesthetic values

must influence how his music structures time. Examining Takemitsus music from an

Asian perspective, I will argue that Takemitsus compositions are coherent and

continuous entities, which sustain an equilibrium between the confluence of Eastern

aesthetics and Western musical styles.

I use three of Takemitsus compositions for analyses: Requiem for Strings (1957)

in Chapter II; Piano Distance for solo piano (1961) in Chapter III; and Rain Tree for

three percussionists (1981) in Chapter IV. Each piece employs different instrumentations

and they represent Takemitsus output from the earlier to the middle periods in his life.

Because I focus on Takemitsu as a composer who wrote music in the Western musical

tradition, all of the analysed compositions are written for Western instruments.

Takemitsus ideal of ensemble performance is to enhance each performers personality,21

which differs from the Western ideal of ensemble performance that strives for individual

sounds to blend into one cohesive sound as if played by one person. In order to interpret

the interactions between performers in the ensemble, I analyzed Takemitsus music in

smaller settings. In the chapter that I analyze the Requiem, I discuss how the recurring

small melodic fragments are embedded in larger repetitions, thus contributing to the

palindromic structure of the piece. The resultant affect for the listener is that the music

seems to be constantly returning to a point in the past. This perception of form relates to

21 Takemitsu described many features of the traditional Japanese music in Oto, Chinmoku toHakariaeruhodoni (Sound, confronting silence) (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1971).

10

the Eastern concept of cyclic time. In Chapter III, I discuss the temporal continuity which

has a definite beginning and a cohesive totality that arises from related parts in Piano

Distance. I then explore the non-hierarchical nature of musical structure in this piece,

which relates to a principle that is prominent in Japanese traditional art. In Chapter IV, I

make use of the concept of inter-subjectivity in Japanese literature to discuss the formal

structure and expressive meaning of Rain Tree.

In the final chapter, in order to provide an opposing perspective of time, culture,

and music, I return to the topic of how time, viewed as an unending cyclic entity, affects

musical form. The final chapter shows how Takemitsu used the nohkan flute in the

soundtrack for Akira Kurosawas film Ran to accommodate Shakespeares King Lear, a

work that relies on Western notions of linearity and development. Kurosawa made many

changes when adapting the plot of King Lear for Ran. These changes reflect the

differences between Japanese concepts of time and change and that of the West. I

conclude that the nohkan music in Ran embodies and signifies the Japanese concepts of

time and change in Kurosawas adaptation of King Lear.

There are no pre-existing standard formal types in Takemitsus music (i.e., sonata

form, rondo form). Structure and form in his music results from a dynamic process that

must be experienced through time. By examining Takemitsus works individually, I

argue that the process of form-building is unique for each piece, and that the resultant

musical form overlaps with the various aspects of Japanese aesthetic values.

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CHAPTER I

CONCEPTS OF TEMPORALITY, LINEARITY, AND FORMIN THE ANALYSIS OF TAKEMITSUS MUSIC

My approach to analyzing Takemitsus music is based on the concepts of process

oriented formation of structure and recognition of relationships among musical events

that occur in a continuous temporal succession. In this chapter, I discuss relative theories

that have been developed by other scholars, as well as theories having to do with the

Eastern concept of time, the concept of temporality developed by Western scholars,

concepts of linearity and nonlinearity, and the concept of form-building. Before I discuss

these issues, it will be helpful first to review relevant biographical information about

Takemitsu and key insights gleaned from his own writings.

Takemitsu explains that he started seeking his unique sound in the ruins after the

fire of World War II. Perhaps somewhat fancifully, he recounts that as the war was

approaching its end, he heard Lucienne Boyer singing the French chanson Parlez-moi

damour from an old phonograph, and that it was the first time he became aware of the

beauty of music from Western culture. And it was this realization that brought about

his desire to make a career of composing music in Western-style.1 As it turned out, the

West was about to invade Japan both physically and culturally. His was the first

generation, in fact, caught in the confrontation between Japanese values and radical

westernization. Defeat forced the young Japanese to be exposed and to absorb the culture

1 Takemitsu writes about his early musical experiences in Toru Takemitsu, Toi Yobigoeno Kanatani(Beyond the far calls) (Tokyo: Shinchousha, 1992), 27-28.

12

of the West, primarily that of America. In 1948, Takemitsu became a private pupil of

composer Yasuji Kiyose with whom he studied for several years. However, by his own

account, he largely taught himself through listening to American radio broadcasts and by

frequently visiting the American library where he studied the scores of numerous

American composers, including Roy Harris, Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, and Roger

Sessions.2

Initially, Takemitsus compositions were not immediately well received in Japan.

Not until Igor Stravinsky visited Japan, heard Takemitsus Requiem for Strings

(composed in 1950), and praised its artistry, originality, and intensity did he gain wider

recognition. In the years following, Takemitsu was inspired to write in more varied

genres, such as musique concrte, tape music, aleatoric music, music using graphic

notation, as well as music written with more conventional techniques. While his attitude

toward music and composition was profoundly influenced by John Cage, he nonetheless

identifies Messiaen as his spiritual mentor, from whom he learned the concept and

experience of color in music and form.3 Takemitsu also became recognized for his

artful composition of soundtracks for a large number of films.4

In the second half of the twentieth century, Takemitsu became recognized as

Japans most distinguished composer.5 Since 1960, his awards in international

2 Ibid., 28.3 Toru Takemitsu, Confronting Silence: Selected Writings, trans. and ed. Yoshiko Kakudo and GlennGlasow (Berkeley, California: Fallen Leaf Press, 1995), 141. Takemitsu does not give a precise descriptionof what he means by these concepts.4 See footnote 1 in Chapter 7 regarding Takemitsus work as film composer.5 Biographical information is taken from Toru Takemitsu, Confronting Silence: Selected Writings, trans.and ed. Yoshiko Kakudo and Glenn Glasow (Berkeley, California: Fallen Leaf Press, 1995), xiii.

13

competitions include two UNESCO Rostrum of Composers Prizes, the Inter Design

Grand Prize, the prix International Maurice Ravel, the Kyoto Music Grand Prize (a

distinction shared with John Cage and Olivier Messiaen), and the Grawemeyer Award.

He was twice commissioned for the 125th and the 150th anniversaries of the New York

Philharmonic Orchestra, for which he composed November Steps (for shakuhachi, biwa,

and orchestra) and Family Tree: Musical Verses for Young People (for narrator and

orchestra, poems by Shutaro Tanikawa). He had numerous commissions, served as music

director in various expositions and projects, was a jury member in national and

international composition competitions, and gave lectures at Yale, Harvard, and Boston

University, as well as other universities and music festivals. In 1990, he was awarded two

honorary Doctorates of Music (from the City of Leeds College of Music, and Durham

University) and was made an honorary member of the American Academy, the Institute

of Arts and Letters, and the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Takemitsu was always concerned about the situation of traditional and

contemporary Japanese music and its reception in international music venues. For the

twenty years following 1973, he organized and served as the music director of Music

Today, a series of annual concerts of international contemporary music. His

accomplishments were also reflected in many national awards.

Takemitsu as an author is now becoming known outside of Japan. However, there

is still a large portion of his writings that remain untranslated. He has written essays and

14

commentaries, and some of his lectures have been transcribed for publication.6 His ideas

on such topics as music, sound and silence, nature, the universe, and the West and East

are frequently expressed in these writings. For example, Takemitsu writes:

To give clear shape to amorphous and irregular musical ideas and images, onecannot avoid depending on words. These are not technical words of music theorybut are instinctive, dramatic, communicative flashes. For that reason, at timeswords are for me a kind of filter of my thoughts, not the means of communicatingevents or emotions. In order to be totally immersed in music I cannot neglectverification of my relationship to the world through the use of words.7

Takemitsu did not write program music, nor did he believe that words explain the essence

of music. For him, words were more like stimulants for his imagination that activated his

sensibilities in his search for sounds.

In the beginning of his career, Takemitsu states that he avoided Japanese music,

since he believed that old-fashioned Japanese music would call back the detestable

memories of old Japan.8 However, he describes one influential experience involving the

Japanese traditional art form of Bunraku, which led him to be aware of the richness of

Japanese culture and to have a greater appreciation for it. Takemitsus interest in

Japanese traditional instruments started in 1961, when he used the biwa, a traditional

Japanese lute-like instrument, for the first time in the music for the documentary film

Nippon no Monyo (Japanese patterns). He used the same instrument again in the

soundtrack for the movie Seppuku, which received the Mainichi Music Festival prize for

6 For the list of writings by Takemitsu (both in Japanese and in translation), see Peter Burt, The Music ofToru Takemitsu (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), selected bibliography, 283-84.7 Toru Takemitsu, Confronting Silence: Selected Writings, trans. and ed. Yoshiko Kakudo and GlennGlasow (Berkeley, California: Fallen Leaf Press, 1995), ix.8 Toru Takemitsu, Toi Yobigoeno Kanatani (Beyond the far calls) (Tokyo: Shinchousha, 1992), 28.

15

best film score. Thereafter Takemitsu employed Japanese instruments frequently in music

for film, radio, and television. His first concert work that used traditional Japanese

instruments was Eclipse (1966) for biwa and shakuhachi (upright flute made of bamboo).

In 1967, he again turned to biwa and shakuhachi for November Steps. This double

concerto brought Takemitsu recognition throughout the world. In this work, Takemitsu

sought to create a new sound through combining instruments from the West and the East.

During the last two decades of his career, Takemitsu less frequently incorporated

Japanese instruments in his music, perhaps because he no longer needed the help of

Japanese instruments to incorporate Eastern aesthetic values into his music.

Even though Takemitsu received wide recognition as a composer internationally,

there are few analytical studies of Takemitsus music. One reason maybe that his music

does not conform to a particular compositional style in twentieth century music, nor does

it utilize any one compositional method. The general understanding among scholars of

Takemitsus music is that his pitch materials often derive from Messiaens modes of

limited transpositions, especially the octatonic and whole tone scales. However, his

procedures are not systematic enough to generalize or codify. Peter Burts recent

publication is the most complete outline of Takemitsus style throughout the composers

career.9 It illustrates many theoretical features of Takemitsus music and offers some

analyses; however, they are neither in detail nor in depth. Other recent studies of

Takemitsus music include a semiotic analysis, which contrasts the meaning of sound in

9 Peter Burt, The Music of Toru Takemitsu (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

16

his music with the dichotomy of Eastern and Western culture,10 and a study of pitch

structure in one of Takemitsus compositions, which compares it to the pitch structure

characteristic of music for the traditional Japanese instrument sho.11 Most studies,

including the above, show to some extent how Eastern culture has influenced his music.

Many scholars have turned to the Eastern concept of time seen in Takemitsus music as a

feature that differentiates his music from that of other Western composers. This seems

plausible since Takemitsu himself was interested in the topic of how music unfolds in

time. However, in this study I argue against the premise that Takemitsus music embraces

the Eastern concept of time that is characterized as nonlinear and discontinuous.

Although I do not necessarily disagree with the Eastern concept of time in music from a

metaphorical perspective, nevertheless as a listener and performer, I support more

strongly a view that asserts a dynamic experience of music that unfolds through the

continuum of time. As a result of my analyses, I conclude that temporality in Takemitsus

music is primarily Western in that it is structured by a definite beginning, by continuity,

and by linearity. In my view, it is not time but the perception of form that more strongly

reflects the influence of Eastern aesthetics. Before presenting my own ideas, I first need

to summarize the findings of previous studies that compare Eastern and Western concepts

of temporality.

10 Yayoi Uno Everett, Reflecting on Two Cultural Mirrors: Mode and Signification of Musical Synthesisin Tru Takemitsus November Steps and Autumn, in A Way a Lone: Writings on Tru Takemitsu, ed.Hugh de Ferranti and Yko Narazaki (Tokyo: Academia Music Ltd., 2002).11 Steven Nuss, Takemitsu and the Cry of the Phoenix, in A Way a Lone: Writings on Tru Takemitsu, ed.Hugh de Ferranti and Yko Narazaki (Tokyo: Academia Music Ltd., 2002).

17

Most scholars agree that many features of Japanese traditional music are prominent

characteristics of Takemitsus music. These include simply using Japanese instruments,

using sounds on Western instruments that imitate the timber and texture of Japanese

instruments,12 and the spatial positioning of instruments that emphasize the individuality

of sound production.13 In addition to these Japanese features, Timothy Koozin argues that

Takemitsus music can be viewed as a modern reflection of the traditional Japanese

concept of time.14 In Oriental philosophy, being over doing has been fundamental in

shaping the traditional Eastern concept of time. While being suggests connection with

the infinite, doing (action) is temporal and temporary. F. S. C. Northrop contrasts the

Oriental portrayal of time as a placid, silent pool within which ripples come and go, while

the Western view represents time either with an arrow or as a moving river.15 The

metaphor illustrates the contrast between the directionality of the Western concept of time

and non- directionality of the Eastern concept of time. Koozin argues that in many

Japanese arts, finite action and timeless eternity coexist, which Kitaro Nishida has called

the unity of opposites.16 Here, time is represented as foreground (finite action) and

background (timeless eternity), for which Koozin gives as an example the Japanese poet

12 See Dana Wilson, The Role of Texture in Selected Works of Toru Takemitsu (Ph. D. diss., Universityof Rochester, 1982).13 I discuss this feature in Chapter IV (i.e., how the instruments are positioned on stage in the performanceof Rain Tree).14 Timothy Koozin explores the Eastern influence of the concept of time in Takemitsus music in The SoloPiano Works of Toru Takemitsu: A Linear/Set-Theoretical Analysis (Ph. D. diss., University ofCincinnati, 1988) and in several articles, such as Toru Takemitsu and the Unity of Opposites, CollegeMusic Symposium 30, no. 1 (1990): 34-44, and Spiritual-Temporal Imagery in Music of Olivier Messiaenand Toru Takemitsu, Contemporary Music Review 7 (1993): 185-202.15 F. S. C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West (New York: Macmillan Company, 1946), 376-83.16 Timothy Koozin, Toru Takemitsu and the Unity of Opposites, College Music Symposium 30, no. 1(1990): 40.

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Bashos haiku. The idea of time represented as a unity of opposites can be traced to the

thirteenth century writings of the Japanese Zen master Dogen, who teaches that time is

being.17 This concept values the beauty of isolated, independent objects or events in a

work of art. It is reflected in the appreciation of spatial and temporal discontinuities

prevalent in Japanese traditional music, poetry, and drama. In music it is represented by

the awareness of motion within a single tone itself rather than among separate tones.18 In

Takemitsus music, individual tones are the finite temporal markers, which in opposition

suggest an awareness of eternal time. Especially when there is no audible metrical

background, the durations of pitches are projected against a background of silence itself. A

metrical background suggests finitude, and nothing extends beyond the beginning and end

of the musical work. Koozin then explains that a stream of local musical events may be

superimposed against a static background of sustained octatonic sonorities,19 which

Takemitsu utilized as a global force for pitch organization. A sustained field of octatonic

sounds used to form a static background is a sonorous continuum, which merges with the

all-embracing background of silence to convey an image of eternity.20 Thus, musical and

extra-musical metaphors suggest an awareness of the infinite in Takemitsus music.

17 Eihei Dogen, Shobogenzo (The eye and treasury of the true law), trans. Kosen Nishiyama and JohnStevens, Shobogenzo, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Daihokkaikaku, 1977), 68; quoted in Timothy Koozin, Spiritual-Temporal Imagery in Music of Olivier Messiaen and Toru Takemitsu, Contemporary Music Review 7(1993): 187.18 Timothy Koozin, Spiritual-Temporal Imagery in Music of Olivier Messiaen and Toru Takemitsu,Contemporary Music Review 7 (1993): 187.19 Timothy Koozin, Toru Takemitsu and the Unity of Opposites, College Music Symposium 30, no. 1(1990): 41.20 Timothy Koozin, Spiritual-Temporal Imagery in Music of Olivier Messiaen and Toru Takemitsu,Contemporary Music Review 7 (1993): 189.

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Koozin argues that the metaphor of the opposition between infinite and finite time

is characteristic of Takemitsus music, and that he also places weight on isolated,

independent objects or events focusing more on individual moments and less on the

continuity of moments. Other scholars focus on the similarities between the temporal and

spatial discontinuities prevalent in Japanese traditional art and the concept of Eastern

time. Fumio Hayasaka states that the form of Japanese traditional music is an eternal

form with sections without head or tail compared to a more dialectical development,

such as that found among the themes of a Western sonata form.21 In the literature of

haiku (short poem) or music of joururi (a narrative style of singing), each part lacks a

clear frame; instead, parts that unfold continuously can be replaced in any order, and they

also can start and end at any place. Jonathan Kramer takes notice of this aspect of

Japanese art, which places emphasis on every object and every moment of time rather

than on a long-range structure. Japanese art is non-dramatic, and, similarly, the

elimination of the dramatic curve is a primary prerequisite for what he calls moment

time, a term that he adopted from Stockhausens idea of moment form.22 In moment

form, Stockhausen articulates the aesthetic of moment time:

Musical forms have been composed in recent years, which are remote from thescheme of the finalistic [goal-directed] dramatic forms. These forms do not aimtoward a climax, do not prepare the listener to expect a climax, and theirstructures do not contain the usual stages found in the development curve of the

21 Shinjo Saito and Maki Takemitsu, eds., Takemitsu Toru no Sekai (The world of Toru Takemitsu) (Tokyo:Shueisha, 1997), 84.22 Jonathan D. Kramer, The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies(New York: Schirmer Books, 1988), 201-2.

20

whole duration of a normal composition: the introductory rising, transitional, andfading stages.23

Kramer argues that Stockhausens idea of moment time in music reflects a non-Western

value in its avoidance of functional implications among moments as well as in its

avoidance of climaxes. A composition in moment time has neither a functional beginning

nor an ending. Although the piece must start for simple practical reasons, it does not

begin; likewise it must stop, but it does not end.24

As I discussed above, Takemitsu was keenly aware of his Japanese heritage and

its cultural influence upon his work. We might assume that his music reflects

Stockhausens moment form, since this idea well describes forms in other Japanese arts,

including traditional Japanese music. Wilkins dissertation, An Analysis of Musical

Temporality in Toru Takemitsus Rain Tree (1981), is based on a similar assumption.25

He summarizes the concept of time in Japanese culture and then bases his analysis of

Rain Tree on Kramers moment form. Avoiding the issue of temporality, he focuses

primarily on the determination of the derivation of pitch materials in each moment or

section of the piece. However, he does not provide a convincing reason as to why he

judges Rain Tree to represent a moment form. We clearly need to ask the question as to

whether we should perceive Takemitsus non-tonal pieces in moment time only

because he has a Japanese cultural background. Is it indeed legitimate to assert that his

music reflects the Eastern concept of time and its consequent lack of beginning, ending,

23 Karlheinz Stockhausen, Momentform, trans. Brad Absetz, Texte zur elektronischen und instrumentalenMusik 1 (Cologne: DuMont, 1963), 199; quoted from Kramer, 201.24 Ibid.25 Blake Matthew Wilkins, An Analysis of Musical Temporality in Toru Takemitsus Rain Tree (1981)(DMA diss., University of Oklahoma, 1999).

21

transition, and climax? As stated above, I argue against the assertion that Takemitsus

music is based on the Eastern concept of time. Instead, I argue that his music is based on

the Western concept of temporality. In the remainder of this chapter, I discuss key issues

related to the Western concept of temporality, such as experienced time, continuity,

linearity, and motion.

Music theorists and composers have extensively discussed the topic of temporality

in music during the past half century,26 although the subject still does not receive enough

attention especially in the analyses of individual compositions. Music theorists have

primarily concerned themselves with the dimension of pitch organization. One reason for

this is that the commonly used terminology of music has direct semantic ties to musical

space. This terminology has more specific meaning than that used for musical time. We

can precisely describe and notate such phenomena as pitch, chord, triad, harmony, and

register; for instance we can describe a pitch as A4 or a harmony as roman numeral IV in

the key of G-major. In contrast, we have greater difficulty describing phenomena such as

arsis, thesis, upbeat, downbeat, tempo, meter, rhythm, rubato, measure, phrase, and period,

phenomena directly related to the issue of musical time. The phenomena of musical time

are less precisely represented by music notation than are phenomena occurring in musical

space. For example, different analysts may have varying interpretations of phrase

structure. Furthermore, a listeners perception of upbeat and downbeat may not coincide

with notational elements such as barlines. Often these terms have little meaning without

26 Various writings that examine the topic of musical time are referenced in footnote 4 in the Introduction.

22

discussing individual pieces, and for this reason, the generalization and categorization of

phenomena in musical time is resistant to further development. As music unfolds in time,

the listeners experience becomes crucial in recognizing the phenomena in musical time

for each piece. Naturally, the listening experience differs from person to person, and

similarly, how the music unfolds in time differs from piece to piece. In the following

discussion, I review the concepts and terminology developed by recent writers, and then

define these concepts in relation to my analysis of Takemitsus music.

Music is unique in our experience of time, for music is a temporal art in which the

motion of tones and continuity are essential. In this sense, time in music is not a

quantitative factor that can be expressed in a formula, such as distance = velocity time.

In other words, time in music is distinguished from clock-time. Susan Langer draws the

necessary distinction between clock time and what she calls duration, which is the

relation of time to music. Musical duration is an image of what might be termed lived

or experienced time.27 Langer describes musical time as dynamic and experiential time,

calling its symbolic presentation in music the primary illusion of music. The elements of

music are moving forms of sound, but in their perceptual motion, nothing is physically

moving. She writes:

All music creates an order of virtual time, in which its sonorous forms move inrelation to each other always and only to each other, for nothing else existsthere. Virtual time is as separate from the sequence of actual happenings as virtualspace from actual space. In the first place, it is entirely perceptible, through theagency of a single sense hearing. There is no supplementing of one sort ofexperience by another. . . . music spreads out time for our direct and completeapprehension, by letting our hearing monopolize it organize, fill and shape it, all

27 Susanne Langer, Feeling and Form (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1953), 109.

23

alone. It creates an image of time measured by the motion of forms that seem togive it substance, yet a substance that consists entirely of sound, so it istransitoriness itself. Music makes time audible, and its form and continuitysensible.28

George Rochberg basically agrees with Langers definition of the term

duration, which he defines as time as experienced in music.29 Rochberg considers

duration as the primary condition of music, which engages the listeners sense of duration

in relation to his/her own experience.30 Thus, even though musical events are notated by

the measured value of notes occurring externally, duration as time as experienced in

music is an internalized process, which in itself is an unmeasurable flow that is

unsusceptible to limits or demarcation.31 David Epstein contrasts the experienced time

against measured time in music with less sense of subjectivity. He calls the essentially

mechanistic, evenly spaced measurement of time chronometric time, which is in large

part evenly articulated time set up within a musical measure. Its measurements and

demarcations provide pragmatic and convenient periodization.32 At the same time,

Epstein terms the unique organization of time intrinsic to an individual piece integral

time, which is enriched and qualified by the particular experience within which it is

framed. He clearly articulates the duality of time in music: the imaginary pulse which is

the marker of time, and the rhythm that reinforces or obscures the underlying metrical

time in individual pieces.33

28 Ibid., 109-10.29 George Rochberg, The Aesthetics of Survival (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1984), 77.30 Ibid., 72-75.31 Ibid., 76-77.32 David Epstein, On Musical Continuity, in The Study of Time IV: Papers from the Fourth Conference ofthe International Society for the Study of Time, Alpbach-Austria, ed. J. T. Fraser, N. Lawrence, and D. Park(New York: Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 1981), 183.33 Ibid.

24

Lewis Rowell argues that the beginning of a composition functions as a transition

from external time or clock-time to the internal time or duration of the composition,

initiating the listeners engagement of expectation. He discusses six functions of the

beginning of a composition: 1) the translation from external time to the internal time of

the composition; 2) the overcoming of the inertia of the surrounding silence, the zone of

atemporality that serves as a frame for the music music takes energy to set it in motion,

and this energy must be felt (and sometimes seen) by the auditors; 3) the demarcation of

the tonal field: laying out the boundaries within which the game is to be played, setting

temporary high and low edges for the pitch spectrum, and establishing a tonal focus or

perspective therein; 4) the promise or forecast of the scope of the whole composition, its

accentual weight, tonal quality, and energy level; 5) the onset of the listeners train of

expectations, predictions, and retrodictions, moving from ambiguity to certainty; and 6)

the establishment of the feeling of motion.34 Among these functions, I consider the fifth

and the sixth of greater significance for the understanding of Takemitsus music. The

fifth function describes well the process of the forming of structural units in

Takemitsus pieces, and the sixth the function of continuity.

The analyst can articulate the emergence or building of form by addressing the

sequence of expectations, predictions, and retrodictions, which is a temporal succession

of units and events. This way of conceptualizing the creation of form-building represents

34Lewis Rowell, The Creation of Audible Time, in The Study of Time IV: Papers from the FourthConference of the International Society for the Study of Time, Alpbach-Austria, ed. J. T. Fraser, N.Lawrence, and D. Park (New York: Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 1981), 199-200.

25

enunciation of time as process. The Oxford English Dictionary defines process as the

fact of going on or being carried on, as an action, or a series of actions or events,35 and

the Random House Dictionary of the English Language defines process as a series of

progressive and interdependent steps by which an end is attained.36 Judy Lochhead

suggests that much contemporary discussion about form fails to address its forming

aspect, that is, discussions of form in general and analyses of specific forms often do not

account for the building-up of a whole by the accumulation of parts. She believes there

is a discomfort among scholars who approach the topic, and that it is this failure to

capture the forming of a temporal shape that is the source of unease about form, an

unease born from the change from thing-oriented thought to process-oriented thought.37

Lochhead bases her discussion on Roger Sessionss argument that the conceptualization

of thing-oriented form has a rigidifying or spatializing effect; the things that

comprise it are, for example, motives, themes, phrases, and sections. Thing-oriented form

is something to be filled like a bottle in three-dimensional space. Emphasizing

process instead of thing, Sessions prefers to think of form in terms of relationships

and functions as they occur during the temporal presentation of musical events.38 This

kind of process-oriented analysis addresses the arising of formal meanings during the

temporal succession of units and events that eventually will constitute a musical whole;

35 Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s.v. process.36 Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd ed., s.v. process.37 Judy Lochhead, Joan Towers Wings and Breakfast Rhythms I and II: Some Thoughts on Form andRepetition, Perspectives of New Music 30, no.1 (1992): 134-35.38 Judy Lochhead, Temporal Process of Form: Sessionss Third Piano Sonata, Contemporary MusicReview 7 (1993): 165-66.

26

that is, it is concerned with the strategy of form-building, not solely with the built

form.39

Among the principles that underlie musical form, the principle of association is

emphasized by Sessions in his second book Questions about Music.40 He writes in his

first book The Musical Experience of Composer, Performer, and Listener that the

function of association is to give significance to a musical idea and unity to musical

forms, and he adds in his second book that association is a back-reference to an

important element that has been already stated. Temporally, Sessionss association is a

past-oriented principle involving references by later events to earlier ones.41

The process-oriented concept of form does not imply the musical action of a

future-directed movement through an a priori structure (such as the dominant chord

progressing to a tonic). Forms are defined by the constant updating of formal meaning

as events occur during the time of a piece. In this conception, form is best described not

by its constitutive elements or as something to be filled in by substantive things (such as

motives and themes), but rather by temporally-directed relations that shape the passing,

the retaining, and the expecting of musical events.42 While events unfold through time in

39 Judy Lochhead, Joan Towers Wings and Breakfast Rhythms I and II: Some Thoughts on Form andRepetition, Perspectives of New Music 30, no.1 (1992): 135.40 Roger Sessions discusses three fundamental principles underlying musical form in his two books, TheMusical Experience of Composer, Performer, and Listener (1950) and Questions about Music (1970).These are: 1) progression or cumulation, which refers to the nature of successive events in a musicalpresentation; 2) association, in which repetition in the broadest sense of its meaning, associates occurrencesthrough musical similarities; and 3) contrast. In the latter book, he adds the principle of balance (orproportion). See Judy Lochhead Temporal Process of Form: Sessionss Third Piano Sonata,Contemporary Music Review 7 (1993): 163-83.41 Ibid., 164-65.42 Ibid., 178.

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the piece, Sessions conceives continuity as the variable nature of relationships among

earlier and later events that give rise to the formal design.43 In the following analyses of

Takemitsus music, I make use of the Lochhead/Sessions concept of process-oriented

formation of structure, and I also use the term continuity as defined by Sessions.

Jonathan Kramer, although not consistently, uses the terms continuity and

discontinuity in conjunction with the terms linearity and nonlinearity in his

discussion of temporality in music.44 He uses the word continuity, for example, when

the music has consistent temporality throughout the piece, that is, the piece has

continuity when it does not disrupt the goal-directed linearity or nonlinear

consistency.

Linearity and nonlinearity are the key words Kramer uses to categorize

temporality in music. He categorizes five kinds of temporality in music according to the

degree of linearity or nonlinearity, in conjunction with the degree of continuity or

discontinuity between musical events, and the directedness of events. He defines

linearity as: the determination of some characteristic(s) of music in accordance with

implications that arise from earlier events of the piece.45 Thus linearity is processive. He

also defines linear time as the temporal continuum created by successive events in which

earlier events imply later ones, and later ones are consequences of earlier ones.

Nonlinearity is nonprocessive. Kramer defines nonlinearity as: the determination of

43 Ibid., 165.44 Jonathan D. Kramer, The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies(New York: Schirmer Books, 1988).45 Ibid., 20. Italics by Kramer.

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some characteristic(s) of music in accordance with implications that arise from

principles or tendencies governing an entire piece or section.46 Nonlinear time is the

temporal continuum that results from principles permanently governing a section or a

piece. According to Kramer, the five categories of time in music (directed linear time,

nondirected linear time, multiply-directed linear time, moment time, and vertical time)

arise from different degrees and kinds of interaction between linearity and nonlinearity.

He contrasts linear with nonlinear time: linear principles are constantly in flux, nonlinear

principles do not grow or change. In linear time, phrases group into periods, subsections,

sections, movements, and so forth, in a usually well ordered hierarchy. Some cadences

are stronger than others, and the stronger ones close off larger portions of the piece.47

Nonlinear principles may be revealed gradually, but they do not develop from earlier

events or tendencies.

Before summarizing Kramers five categories of temporality in music, I need to

discuss the two concepts of directedness (or directionality) and goal-oriented (terms

interchangeable with goal-directed or goal-defining) that Kramer and other writers

describe. The degree of discontinuity and/or the lack of directedness of events determine

Kramers three types of linear time, which he calls directed linear time, nondirected

linear time, and multiply-directed linear time.

George Rochberg writes; Direction in music derives from a clear perception of,

and therefore corresponds to, the clear presentation of temporal and spatial points of

46 Ibid. Italics by Kramer.47 Ibid., 55.

29

departure and movement or passage en route to points of arrival or destination.48 There

are two essential conditions on which direction in music depends: periodicity of rhythmic

activity and tonality.49 However, as seen in certain atonal music, rhythmic periodicity can

itself manifest the sense of directedness, without the support of a tonic harmony as a

point of arrival. In this case, if the pitches in an atonal context form a horizontal line that

has shape, it is possible to perceive a sense of phrase similar to that in tonal music,

although the sense of directedness is weak.50 Directedness is one of the two conditions

necessary for music to have a goal-oriented nature.51 However, during the twentieth

century, through a disintegration of these traditional features, composers have found new

types of structural order, which are essentially nondirectional.52 The best example is

total serialism, a pre-determined serialization of pitch (space) and rhythm (time), which

can negate traditional features such as shape and periodicity. Serial music can arrive at

non-directionality in terms of both an integrated structural order and audibility, meaning

that the musics form, as a whole, no longer relies merely upon relationships among

musical events.53

Kramer uses the term directedness in a more specific sense, as in directedness

towards a certain goal that is known in advance. He also uses the term goal-oriented

48 George Rochberg, The Aesthetics of Survival (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1984), 100.49 Ibid.50 Ibid., 107.51 Ibid., 142. The other condition is causality, which can be seen in pitch relation through the response ofmelodic antecedents and consequences, harmonic progressions toward the point of cadence, and in thetendency of metric/rhythmic forces to accumulate and drive to climactic points in phrases, sections, andmovements.52 Ibid., 104.53 Ibid., 113.

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with a more specific meaning, always associating it with tonality. Since the tonic is

endowed with ultimate stability, tonal relationships conspire toward one goal: the return

of tonic, finally victorious and no longer challenged by other keys. Thus, tonal motion is

always goal-directed,54 which Kramer calls directed linear time. For Leonard B. Meyer,

tonal music is teleological. Despite the obvious differences in structure and pattern that

exist in music of the common practice era, tonal music in general is perceived as having a

purposeful direction and goal.55 Teleology directs musical continuity to the purpose or

goal (tonic harmony), creating tension and repose, with the cause and effect relationship

in a one-dimensional flow of musical events.

In the absence of a tonic as the systems a priori goal, post-tonal compositions

often create the sense of cadence contextually by using contrasting texture, timbre,

figuration, or register to define phrases. These cadences do not become cadences by

themselves, but rather they are entirely contextual. They are defined by factors such as

non-pitch parameters of rhythmic activities, texture, timbre, figuration, or register, which

are made to act more structurally, more independently, more prominently since they

happen in the context of previous reiteration and emphasis.56 In the example Kramer

provides, the non-pitch parameters promote stepwise pitch motion to the status of goal-

defining motion. These include an incremental slowing of the tempo, a lengthening note

54 Jonathan D. Kramer, The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies(New York: Schirmer Books, 1988), 25.55 Leonard B. Meyer, Music, the Arts, and Ideas: Patterns and Predictions in Twentieth-Century Culture(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 72.56 Jonathan D. Kramer, The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies(New York: Schirmer Books, 1988), 33.

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durations, a thinning texture, decreasing dynamics, a downward motion after an

overabundance of rising figures, less frequent change of instrumental colors, and a

freshness of the subsequent music. The cadence thus grows from the preceding music in

both its pitch and non-pitch features. It is the conspiring toward a common goal in all

these parameters that creates the linear motion toward the cadence.57 Kramer argues that

this type of a high degree of linearity is exhibited in much post-tonal music of the

twentieth century.58 He calls it nondirected linearity, which is nondirected to an a

priori goal at a background level and is different from the directed linearity in tonal

music.59

Kramer calls musical time multiply-directed when the implication in every

section of the music is continually frustrated by the subsequent section, but nonetheless is

often realized later on. Multiply-directed time is discontinuous time; its discontinuities

segment and reorder linear time. A piece that has multiply-directed linear time has a clear

beginning (or several unmistakable beginnings), which may or may not occur at the start

of the piece. Similarly, it can have one or several final cadences, not necessarily at the

end of the piece. The multiplicity resides in the conflict between implied linearity in the

foreground and realized nonlinearity in the middleground.60

57 Ibid., 38.58 Only some of the post-tonal linearity is goal-directed. Kramer provides examples from SchoenbergsQuartet no.4 and Violin Concerto, and from Weberns Cantata no. 1 where a four-note chord becomes astable sonority. Schoenberg tries to make certain transpositional levels of the combinatorial row structuremore stable than others, thus creating transposition levels as goals.59 Ibid., 39.60 Ibid., 50.

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Kramer calls the extreme case of nonlinear time moment time. According to

Kramer, a nonlinear composition in moment time does not really begin, but rather it

simply starts, as if it had already been going on, and we merely happened to tune in on it.

Similarly, the ending of music in moment time ceases rather than gives closure.61

Moments can be self-contained sections of a composition set off by discontinuities,

which may be related, but not connected by transitions, and are heard more for

themselves, rather than as participants in a larger plan of a composition. For instance,

each moment could be characterized by an underlying static harmony, by a constant

tempo, or by consistency of melodic cells, which generally unfold by means of

permutation rather than goal-directed development. These are the characteristics of

nonlinearity.62 Furthermore, when the moment becomes the piece, Kramer calls the

time sense invoked vertical time.63 As I have discussed above, the aesthetics of

Kramers moment time are very much in accord with the aesthetics of traditional

Japanese art.

Lewis Rowell and George Rochberg also recognize music in a similar way to

Kramers concept of vertical time. Rowell describes the stabilized processes in music that

suggest the illusion of stasis and suggest being more than becoming.64 He suggests the

types of music, somewhat roughly, that imply stasis: music with extensive repetition,

61 Ibid.62 Ibid., 282.63 Ibid., 55.64 Lewis Rowell, The Creation of Audible Time, in The Study of Time IV: Papers from the FourthConference of the International Society for the Study of Time, Alpbach-Austria, ed. J. T. Fraser, N.Lawrence, and D. Park (New York: Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 1981), 201.

33

trance music and pieces that employ continuous sound loops, sound mass pieces, music

that is nonhierarchical, music that is randomly ordered, minimalist pieces, extremely

ambiguous music, extended climax, and stream-of-consciousness music with extensive

use of citation and allusion to other pieces.65

Rochberg identifies music influenced by Eastern Zen Buddhism, which regards

the present moment (being) as supreme reality. He argues that composers of chance

music in particular are drawn to Zen, and that they imply in their attitude toward music

an existential tendency; that is, they see music as the occurrence of unpredictable events,

each moment of sound or silence freed of formal connection with the moment before or

after, audible only as a present sensation, an ensemble of musical happening of

undetermined form or length.66 This type of music is non-teleological, exercising the role

of aborting, frustrating, or circumventing direction and continuity; here, the lack of

purpose and internal causal relationships represent the avowed premise on which

aleatoric music rests.67 Rochberg also considers highly serialized music as planned

indeterminacy, and regards it as non-teleological or discontinuous as well. He categorizes

aleatoric music and total serialism as space-form, in which all events occur as

completed present actions; and while occurring in succession, they require no

continuation between events. In contrast to the linear or teleological music that he calls

speech-form, which is always becoming and never completes action in the present

65 Lewis Rowell, Thinking About Music: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Music (Amherst: Universityof Massachusetts Press, 1983), 172.66 George Rochberg, The Aesthetics of Survival (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1984), 74.67 Ibid., 143.

34

moment, Rochberg presents space-form as a new mode of consciousness in musical

experience. He writes;

By subordinating duration to space, music no longer exists in its former state ofanticipation of the future. It projects itself as a series of present moments, holdingup to aural perception each spatial image as the self-sufficient object of perceptionas it occurs, not as it will realize itself in some future event.68

For Rochberg, this new musical perception of space-form seeks to attain the pure

presence, the present event freed from its connection with past and future events; and

within this succession of the consciousness of the present, without any perception of past

and future, the listener experiences timelessness.

Christopher Hasty objects to the notion that extreme contrast or the absence of

predictability can negate temporal succession and thereby becomes timelessness. Hasty

argues that we cannot negate the continuous temporal succession of musical events from

before and after, and they will not have any meaning by isolating one from another. He

suggests that we may understand music without tendency or direction as openness to the

possibility of relating events. Once heard, musical events allow the listener to reinterpret

what was previously given and at the same time to provide reference to interpret future

events. Hasty writes, In this way the temporal phases of present, past, and future are

necessarily implicated in one another in a progressive development toward completion

and wholeness.69

68 Ibid., 132. Other writers who discuss spatialization of time are Gyrgy Ligeti, Metamorphoses ofMusical Form, Die Reihe 7, Form-Space, trans. Cornelius Cardew (Bryn Mawr: Theodore Presser, 1965),and Barney Childs, Time and Music: A Composers View, Perspective of New Music 15, no. 2 (1977).69 Christopher Hasty, On the Problem of Succession and Continuity in Twentieth-Century Music, MusicTheory Spectrum 8 (1986): 62. The argument of the spatialization of time is further discussed in ChapterSixteen in his book Meter as Rhythm (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 296-303.

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I adopt Hastys perspective of the continuous temporal succession of musical

events that necessarily provide meaning to one another. I argue that Takemitsus music is

not goal-directed, but is linear in the way that musical events have causal relationships.

My study of Takemitsus music seeks to better understand how the composer structures

time when musical events arise in relation to the temporal past, present, and future. I find

most useful Hastys concept of the motion of tones and their continuation, as well as his

discussion of how we perceive phrase formation in post-tonal composition. These

concepts are summarized below.

For many writers, motion describes a relationship between musical entities in a

temporal succession.70 The perception of the continuation of a line or a phrase is actually

a process of mind, which could be highly subjective. Hasty discusses this difficult

concept of musical motion and its relation to the concept of meter in further detail in his

article Rhythm in Post-Tonal Music: Preliminary Questions of Duration and Motion.

He points out that the term motion is difficult to detach from the metaphor of spatial

phenomena. He quotes Errol Harriss study of temporal relationships in dealing with the

problem of musical motion. First, he shows that the form or structure of temporal

relations is necessarily that of continuous succession. For Harris, succession implies

70 Rochberg writes, Since pitch is that aspect of music whose source is the physical universe and cannotmove by itself, but depends entirely on being moved by the action of the intuitive time sense, i.e., on beingrhythmatized, pitch assumes new properties and, presumably, a new independence. (Rochberg 1984, 144).Rowell writes, Motion includes the ideas of continuity, the rate of regular recurrence, the identity of atheme, the apparent rate of passage through time, direction toward a future goal, our own temporal agingduring a piece of music, and the difference in rate between our own changes of state and those perceived inthe music. He suggests that musical motion is a kind of vehicular motion, as the listener perceives acontinuous musical identity moving past our field of hearing (Rowell 1983, 170-71). Epstein saysrhythmic-metric structure is the mechanism of motion, which engenders motion that creates continuity.(Epstein 1981, 194).

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continuity, and both succession and continuity require change or a difference of some

sort.71 Hasty points out that since it is our mode of cognition that creates temporal

relations, we need to locate continuous change in the activity of our attention. The more

important issue, however, is how do we cognize the organization or structuring of this

change. He writes;

If there are two tones in succession, and if these two tones are unified as a whole,rather than to conceive as two separate events, the relationship between the twotones (in this case, an interval) gives to each other a particular quality whichneither member exhibits as an individual. Since it is only in the union of the twotones that these qualities arise, the durations of both tones cannot be excludedfrom participating in those qualities. In another words, if we are able to perceivethe two tones as a unit (that is, as a duration) the immediate qualitative changeintroduced by the second tone must be thought of as permeating the two events asa mutual conditioning or relationship, imparting to both tones an order. Thecontinuous change of the first tone becomes a particular qualitative change as itapproaches the second tone. The duration of the second tone likewise receives anorder to its continuity as it recedes from the first (and progresses to the third). It isin this sense I believe that we can legitimately speak of musical motion. What isrequired for motion to take place is the formation of a structure or whole betweenor among events.72

It is important to note that in post-tonal music, the motion between two pitches is not

isolated from the same two pitches if they become a structure as part of the unifying

whole. In contrast to tonal music, where there is a presupposed implication of some tone

motions (the strongest case is the tendency tone), in post-tonal music, the tone motion is

constantly updating the interpretation of the present moment, reflecting the structure of

the past events, and anticipating the future events.

71 Christopher Hasty, Rhythm in Post-Tonal Music: Preliminary Questions of Duration and Motion,Journal of Music Theory 25 (1981): 189.72 Ibid., 191.

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A musical work is a whole, composed of interrelated parts presented successively

in time. Hasty asks how we can perceive a temporal whole as a unity of parts in a

musical work.73 As each sound is given in time, the past event is no longer sounding,

which means the whole does not exist at any given moment of time.74 Since our

perception exists in the present moment, he continues that the unitary awareness might be

brought by the past event, which provides context for or conditions the present event.75

When a tone does not have an association with a particular tone (as opposed to the

relationships between tones within tonal function, or the succession of tones within a pre-

determined row form), then we associate certain sound events with other events that we

have retained in our memory. F. Bartlett observes the role of memory in perceiving the

sense of phrase formation as follows:

A new phrase may be constructed on the basis of a prior act of construction. Theprior phrase will not then be recalled but may be used in the creation of the newstructure. What is retained is not the content of the perceived present but theconstructive act which led to its formation.76

He shows that memory can be understood better as an act of construction rather than of

reproduction. Another fact we should keep in mind is how researchers have shown that

aural memories are more secure in the beginning and in the end of a certain event, and

that it is the memory of middle elements that exhibit the most inaccuracy.77

73 See Christopher Hasty, Phrase Formation in Post-Tonal Music, Journal of Music Theory 28 (1984):167-190.74 Ibid., 169.75 Ibid.76 Quoted from Ibid., 187.77 For experimental accounts, Hasty cites Carl Iver Hovland, Experimental Studies in Rote-LearningTheory. VII. Distributions of Practice with Varying Lengths of List, Journal of Experimental Psychology27 (1940): 271-84 and Nancy C. Waugh, Serial Position and the Memory-Span, American Journal ofPsychology 73 (1960): 68-79.

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To form a phrase, associations must be structured between one sound event to

another sound event, and they also must project an aural sense of closure. This feeling of

closure can be attained by certain gestures or rests, or by a long silence. Previous

experiments show that silence or a long pause is one of the strongest characteristics

contributing to the perception of boundaries that divide music into sections.78 This

characteristic corresponds to Lerdahl and Jackendoffs grouping preference rule 2

(temporal gaps in the music induce boundaries).79

As a phrase is being formed, musical events are open to future interpretation and

may hold considerable ambiguities, particularly in its initial stages. In order to perceive

musical events as structural units, questions arise regarding segmentation. Generally,

segmentation is the division of a musical work into structural components.80 In tonal

music, segmentation correlates with harmony through the understanding of consonances

and dissonances. Thus we understand an arpeggiated chord as a single unit of harmony.

For non-tonal music, there is nothing that is comparable to the tertian relationship of

tones and its progression in tonal music. Thus, for non-tonal music, we cannot segment

and associate certain tones based on any pre-existing premise. According to Hasty, a

structure has two aspects. First, it must have a unitary value in domain that would not

break it up into subcomponents.81 By domain, he means discrete musical properties that

78 Eric F. Clarke and Carol L. Krumhansl, Perceiving Musical Time, Music Perception 7, no.3 (1990),213-252.79 Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, A Generative Theory of Tonal Music (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983).80 Christopher Hasty, Segmentation and Process in Post-Tonal Music, Music Theory Spectrum 3 (1981),54.81 Ibid., 58.

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include such features as timbre, dynamics, intervallic associations, register, and

contour.82 The second aspect of a structure is that it must be distinguished as an object of

our attention by possessing a difference of value in the same domain compared with

another object.83 One simple example would be a group of notes played arco compared to

a group of notes played pizzicato. These two groups of tones are differentiated as

distinctive objects in the domain of timbre. On the basis of this concept of structure,

Hasty defines segmentation as the process of structural formation, the action of

structures producing formal articulations.84 He also states that segmentation may be

regarded as the formation of boundaries of continuity and discontinuity which result from

the structures of various domains.85

In the analyses of Takemitsus music, I follow the concepts of phrase formation

and segmentation discussed by Hasty to determine the associations of structurally

significant sound events. I adopt Hastys perspective of the continuous temporal

succession of musical events that provide meaning to one another. Lochhead and

Sessionss process-oriented formation of structure deals with larger formal units, but the

underlying point of view is largely the same. I consider that Takemitsus music is not

goal-directed, but that it is linear in the way that the structure of musical events has

causal relationships. In this way of thinking, I argue against the viewpoint that

Takemitsus music reflects the Eastern concept of time in its nonlinear and discontinuous

82 Ibid., 57.83 Ibid., 58.84 Ibid., 59.85 Ibid.

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structure. As a result of my analyses, I conclude that temporality in Takemitsus music is

primarily Western in that it embraces a definite beginning, continuity, and linearity, even

though it may not necessarily progress towards a climax. My study of Takemitsus music

seeks to better understand how the composer structures time when musical events arise in

relation to the temporal past, present, and future. Once heard, musical events allow the

listener to reinterpret what was previously heard, and at the same time, to create reference

points for interpreting future events.

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CHAPTER II

REQUIEM FOR STRINGS (1957): CYCLIC-TIME FORM

Requiem for Strings, commissioned by Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, is an early

piece that brought Takemitsu widespread recognition. The premiere, however, was not

received well by the critics, until Stravinsky, visiting Japan for the first time in 1959,

having heard the Requiem gave it highest praise. The Japanese conductor Hiroyuki Iwaki

writes that without Stravinskys praise, Takemitsus compositional path might have been

quite different.1 Takemitsu was critically ill while composing the Requiem for Strings,

and Fumio Hayasaka, who was both Takemitsus mentor and a friend, had just passed

away.2 Both events deeply affected Takemitsu, prompting him to compose a work titled

Requiem.

When describing the Requiem, Takemitsu asserts that the work has no clearly

differentiated beginning or end, thereby lacking the kind of articulations necessary to our

usual definition of musical form. Using a favorite metaphor, he states that he simply

sliced off a piece of stream of sound that flows eternally and pierces through the world

that surrounds human beings.3 In spite of Takemitsus claims, I argue that we hear a

precise beginning in the Requiem, one that influences and provides relationships and

1 Hiroyuki Iwaki, Sakkyokuka Takemitsu Toru to Ningen Mayuzumi Toshiro (The composer ToruTakemitsu and the human being Toshiro Mayuzumi) (Okayama: Sakuyo Gakuen, 1999), 27.2 Toru Takemitsu, Toi Yobigoeno Kanatani (Beyond the Far Calls) (Tokyo: Shinchousha, 1992), 45. Mytranslation.3 Ibid, 46.

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references to later events in the music. However, on first hearing the formal structure of

the Requiem is not immediately apparent.

In this chapter, I propose that there are three attributes that contribute to the sense

of indistinctness in the structure of the Requiem: harmonic ambiguity, metric ambiguity

and above all, formal ambiguity that results from cyclic repetition of patterns. The

elusiveness of the perception of pulse and meter at many moments of the piece, as well as

the obscurity of the origin of pitch mat