It’s good to see you back in Japan after such a long time!

My pleasure to be here! It’s the first time since 1997, when we performed "The Cave" (at Theatre Cocoon, Bunkamura).

Tickets were almost sold out even three months before the concerts! I remember particularly many young people being in the audience.

It was surprising to see for me as well, and I was quite happy about that. The audience was fantastic. It was a great pleasure to be able to work here in Tokyo with people I'd known for ages, such as the members of the Ensemble Modern, and you of course. It’s important that the musicians can relax and have a good time on stage, and this time Tokyo Opera City, who organizes the concerts, gave us plenty of time for rehearsals. I feel that this will yield magnificent results. The concert hall is very nice as well. To me it seems like a very Japanese kind of space, with an air of Shinto in the architecture. On the first day of rehearsals I thought it would be difficult to get the sound right, but after playing around with it for another day it suddenly became so good it sounded like something completely different.

Rehearsal of "Drumming" (pt.1)
Photo: Maeda Keizo

You're in Japan also as a judge for Tokyo Opera City’s "Toru Takemitsu Composition Award" this time. What did you think about the competition?

In hindsight, it was a really interesting event. When I heard that it was about pieces for orchestra, I first replied that I couldn't be a judge in that case, but suggested that may accept under the condition that it can be free ensembles that could perform on computers or other electronic instruments instead. Up to the 19th century, I accept the orchestra as an appropriate musical format, but I believe that now, in the 21st century, the actuality of music spreads over a much broader spectrum. However, it is also a fact that there have always been people who don't think that way. It’s only a presumption, but I had the impression that musical education in this country (Japan) is perhaps still biased toward Western music up to the 19th century in a conservative sense. In America we have a joke that goes like this. "Question: How can we save the future of classical music in America? Answer: With oriental women." (laughs)

In my recent lecture, a young man - obviously a music student - asked the following question. "Are you using a computer for composing music?" I replied, "Sure, from time to time." Then he said (in a way that suggested he wanted to make a point that scores have to be handwritten), "I think it’s better to use a pencil and paper." Writing scores by hand is of course a very important process for students, but I'm not so sure if it’s good when people don't accept other methods. This time’s "Composium" was an important occasion in terms of raising questions about such somewhat feudalistic ideas.

I believe that, here in Japan (and probably also elsewhere in the world) your music suddenly became popular among young people from the mid-nineties.

Rehearsal of "Music for 18 Musicians"
Photo: Maeda Keizo

I think that’s right. I'm aware that especially people from the realm of pop music got interested in my music, and that’s something that makes me very happy. When surfing the Internet and reading posts on all kinds of blogs, I'm repeatedly stumbling across a British band called Falls, whose members keep talking about my music…I actually happen to be working on a rock 'n' roll piece at the moment. I've been exchanging several e-mails with Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead since someone had introduced me to him, and sent him several files of yet unfinished pieces. Jonny once studied the viola in Oxford. Then he learned to play the guitar and has been a guitarist up to this day. He can read musical notation, so he interpreted the files I sent him in his own personal way, and orchestrated them with the other members of the band. Then the band Bang on a Can got involved as well. The final result, a piece of approximately twenty minutes, is scheduled to premiere as part of the Manchester International Festival in July 2009. The recordings and subsequent concert tour take place with an ensemble of about ten members including guitarists, bassists, drummers and pianists. There will be a soundtrack accompanying the performances of course.

When people discuss your work, it’s often about the pieces' musical structures, but in my view there is also that special timbre and texture that characterizes your music that one shouldn't forget.

That’s also related to the fact that I'm not writing 19th century style orchestra pieces.

Yes, definitely. I really wonder how you always manage to carve out such unique textures for each of the instruments used in a piece…

The current album, "Daniel Variations"
( WARNER MUSIC JAPAN)

I'm usually writing individual scores for each part (instrument) first, and then put them all together. When releasing "Drumming", I remember someone calling it a "totally new orchestral composition that’s almost like gamelan music." Later, in 1973, I made "Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices & Organ" with only a few harmonic movements. Then came "Music for 18 Musicians", and still the fundamental elements were basically the same. But I didn't use a bass, which turned out to lend my music some kind of "lightness". In either case, the pieces I compose are not heavy, with the exception of "Four Organs" perhaps. In terms of chords, things rarely go below "G" or "C", which is simply what keeps coming out when trusting my own ears. When composing "Music for…", one of the musicians joked, "Hey, you finally learned how to write a bassline!" (laughs) Other characteristics I think include a consistent (slow) tempo, a structure based around one long tone, and counterpoints. These are things I learned from medieval music, especially from the polyphonic music of the likes of Perotin. This goes also for "Four Organs" and "Proverb". That’s again different from drone music, but in any case it all has a bit of a non-western sound to it, doesn't it? Maybe one could also call it "slow-motion music". It’s a very complex structure, but nonetheless the result is never heavy. In my view that’s a historical chain that connects everything from Gregorian chant to Bach.

So that’s one of the things you wanted to say when you referred to Bach as not only the beginning but also the end of something…

Exactly, and I suppose one could say the same about 20th century music.

[ To be continued ]