Search - Takemitsu, Wakasugi, Ryusuke :: Gemeaux

Takemitsu is a master

jim collins | NY USA | 01/08/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Drivel- no. Abstract, a collage of sound, bueatiful,solemn, scary -yes. For those who like their music full of bells and whistles had best stay with the Nutcracker Suite- this is deep, meditative stuff! (also try Satoh for a more moderate experience)"

A Vast, almost overwhelming Sea

N. Andrew Walsh | 05/22/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This was the first disc of Takemitsu's that I bought, and it still remains the most meaningful to me. Admittedly, his harmonies can be a little hard to take for the uninitiated; I would strongly recommend someone new to contemporary music listen to Dream/Window or Spirit Garden first. Gemeaux is a vast, often chaotic work, and might be a little much. But don't let that discourage you. I'm a *student* of contemporary music, and I still have to listen to most of Takemitsu's works a couple times before I can find my way. He studied much of the French style of music from the early Twentieth Century, so his music comes across as a blend of Debussy, Messaien, and Varese. With his own idiosyncracies thrown in. His music, while very free-form, has an inner sense of *life* to it, as if the music is more an act of the orchestra breathing, rather than moving along at any set rhythm. There are no fast tempi here; Takemitsu once said that "there is no fast music in Japan," and that seems true here.For a listener of classical music, who has heard Stravinsky, Ravel, Debussy, and others of the early twentieth century, I strongly recommend this as your next step. Yes, Takemitsu's harmonies and sense of melodic structure, phrasing, and all the rest is a little beyond what you'd hear on the radio. But it's hardly drivel.The music here is the closest I think one could come to music that is an actual living, breathing thing. Gemeaux does not march, or dance, or anything else that we have come to expect from western music. Rather, it is, as Takemitsu himself described it, "a love story." The work is turbulent, rapturous, and at peace. And in the end it is, as one would hope of all love stories, pure extacy."