Toru Takemitsu Film Music/DSO

None of the composers of so-called serious music who have also written film music – like Copland, Britten, Prokofiev, Milhaud, Shostakovich or Schnittke – can be compared to Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) when it comes to dedication and output. In the years in between the composition of his first film music (Crazed Fruit, 1956) and his last (Sharaku, 1995), he wrote the scores for an additional 95 films. Takemitsu cooperated closely with directors like Kobayashi, Kurosawa, Oshima, Shinoda or Teshigahara and apparently had quite some influence on their filmic creations. His music displays an astoundingly broad range of styles – Hollywood Romance, opulent baroque sounds, experimental genres are all in his repertoire. His ability to cross musical borders, to commute between and play with divergent musical cultures, is also typical of his whole oeuvre as a composer, and throughout his life Takemitsu never made a distinction between writing scores for films and composing concert music.