Rain Dreaming

Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) was born and raised in Japan. Idioms of traditional Japanese music never left Takemitsu’s own creations, though he has consciously sought to combine sounds of his home with avant-garde techniques borrowed from Western Europe. For Takemitsu the latter means a particularly close study of Debussy, Messiaen, and Webern. It was under John Cage’s influence that Takemitsu nourished an interest in minimalism and indeterminacy. His style continued to evolve and gradually embraced a large aesthetic called the “sea of tonality.” Beginning in the 1980s, Takemitsu’s works often reference water in their titles and use tonal progressions as a point of departure for more radical explorations.
Rain Dreaming for solo harpsichord forces a moment of cognitive readjustment between, on one hand, an instrumental sound (i.e., the harpsichord) that has become almost synonymous with the familiar, slowly changing textures of Baroque music; and on the other hand, modern harmony and jagged motives. Takemitsu latches onto a particular pitch pattern, D–C–G, that he immediately sequences as B flat–A flat–E flat. These patterns carry tonal implications; most trained musicians will interpret the pattern as re-do-sol. The motives are surrounded by more unsettled material as if they emerge from relative chaos. The harpsichord contributes a timbre that sparkles at times, can sound percussive, but generally sounds full and resonant—not unlike the traditional Japanese koto. Rain Dreaming melds an interest in timbre and detail with an uncanny grasp of acoustical space, resonance, and a belief in evolving sound events. It is elegant and yet broadly compassed.

(c) Jason Stell