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Toru Takemitsu's Death and Resurrection in US Premiere with Riverside Symphony

Jan. 02, 2014

Toru Takemitsu's <em>Death and Resurrection</em> in US Premiere with Riverside Symphony

On January 25, the Riverside Symphony performs the US premiere of Toru Takemitsu’s Death and Resurrection at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, conducted by George Rothman. The nine-minute work for string orchestra is based on Takemitsu’s score for Shahei Imamura's acclaimed 1989 film "Kuroi Ame" (Black Rain), which captured the sense of bewilderment and suffering in the aftermath of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

Riverside Symphony calls Death and Resurrection “an exquisite modern Romantic opus,” and Takemitsu’s music is often described as understated, graceful, touching, and full of longing and thoughtful nostalgia. Influenced by Debussy, Messiaen, Schoenberg, and Cage among others, his works are a delicate and intricate blend of Western and traditional Japanese music. Tom Service of The Guardian notes:

The real substance of Takemitsu's Japanese heritage can't be reduced to an instrument, a color or even a harmony. There's something more fundamental about his understanding of music… It's something expressed by the Japanese [word] ‘ma,’ which suggests the concept of a void that isn't empty, an absence that is really a presence, a space between things that is full of energy… Takemitsu was a useful – in fact essential – composer.

For more information on Toru Takemitsu, please visit www.schott-music.com.

Visit www.riversidesymphony.org for details on the Riverside Symphony’s performance.

Toro Takemitsu
Death and Resurrection (1996)
for string orchestra
str (8.6.4.4.2)
9’

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