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AGP24 kicks off a series of requests by AGP patrons with a collection of works by Toru Takemitsu, one of the most brilliant and fascinating composers of modern music. Most of Takemitsu's major works are available on CD, but a number of interesting ones appear to have fallen through the cracks. This torrent collects all of the out-of-print works by Takemitsu that I could find in my stacks. Tracks 01-06 come from a 4LP celebration of Takemitsu released on the Japanese RCA label in 1970. They are electroacoustic works from 1956, 1960, and a four-movement suite drawn from the music Takemitsu wrote for the movie Kwaidan in 1966. Track 07 was written in 1968, and comes from a US RCA release from 1969. The torrent includes a text file with the liner and booklet notes from both sources. If you have never seen the movie Kwaidan before, be sure to check it out. It is a collection of four Japanese ghost stories that had been collected by Lafcadio Hearn. The DVD release presents it in glorious widescreen with rich colors. The visual composition is stunning, and the stories are genuinely spooky. The third tells the story of a young monk who sings and plays the biwa, a traditional Japanese lute. He is especially renowned for his performances of the medieval epic describing the struggle between the clans of Genki and Heike, and is asked by a rich family to sing of the culminating sea battle between those clans. Takemitsu's score for that story (the third movement in the suite) makes extensive use of a performance of that piece by Kinshi Tsurita, a renowned singer and biwa player who Takemitsu also worked with on "November Steps". To provide some context for this movement, I have included a performance by Kinshi Tsurita of this whole piece, recorded in the early 1970s and released on LP by Le Chant Du Monde. The sound of singing with biwa accompaniment is not to be missed. NOTE: This installment originally included seven more tracks comprising Takemitsu's Arc for piano and orchestra (1963-1966), and Green for orchestra (1967). These tracks have been deleted because a 1998 live recording of both works by the London Sinfonietta has been re-released on CD. To download AGP24 files, right-click on each of the following links and select SAVE LINK AS.
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