String round Autumn

A glance at the titles of some of Toru Takemitsu’s major works - A flock descends into the pentagonal garden, To the edge of dream, Tree line, I hear the water dreaming - tells you quite a lot about him. He is clearly more likely to be inspired by a poetic image than by a formal concept, and if there is some intangible or even inaudible quality to the image so much the better. His music is, in fact, the result of a highly refined exotic sensibility applied to a no less highly developed western technique and, as such, something quite unique in the repertoire. It is true that it sounds more French than anything else, but it is not so much that affiliation as the sheer quality of the craftsmanship and the imagination behind it that has made Takemitsu the one Japanese composer to register a major impression in the concert halls of Europe and America.

Commissioned by the Festival d’Automne as part of the celebration of the bicentennial of the French Revolution, String round Autumn was first performed by Nobuko Imai and the Orchestre de Paris under Kent Nagano in November 1989. It is dedicated “to the people of France, among whom are Claude Debussy and Oliver Messiaen who,” as the composer puts it, “have given deep influence to my music.” While traces of Debussy impressionism are not hard to find here, Messiaen harmonies are less in evidence than in some other Takemitsu scores. What String round Autumn does have in common with many Messiaen works, however, is its avoidance of a dynamic form, a conflict resulting in resolution, of the kind common to most Western music. It is a reflection of a state of mind in which the passage of time is of apparently little importance.

The music and its title were inspired by a poem by Makato Ooka:

Sink

don’t sing.

Be simply

silent.

Be simple:

a string

to wind around

Autumn.

The orchestra represents Autumn, or an autumnal landscape, while the solo viola represents the string that is wound round it, or the human observer of the natural scene. The “string” is formed by a series of eight notes from which not only the eloquently flexible viola part but also much of the intricately textured orchestral part is derived. In spite of the fluctuating contrast and blend of solo and orchestral colours, this is no concerto. There is an orchestral introduction and there is a viola cadenza not far from the end but, basically, it is a matter of atmosphere and contemplation sustained at a generally slow tempo until the harmonic and melodic implications of the eight-note string have been worked out.