Ecstatic Living Room

When Michael Tilson Thomas announced a meditative encore for the finale performance of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra on March 20 he explained:

“This program, which was planned months ago, was designed to be spectacular and colorful, but tonight we are very mindful of people in Japan and New Zealand and Australia who are experiencing the consequences of terrible natural disasters.  Perhaps music’s most important role is to offer people solace in times like this.   The spirituality and peacefulness of music is perhaps the quality that we musicians treasure the most.   It’s what sticks with us long after the performances are over.  It can bring us to tears because the beauty of music can seem too fragile to last, so each time we play it we recreate it.   We are so grateful to be preserving it and sharing it with you.”

The tragedy of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, literally a world away, is unfathomable except for what is brought to us through television and print reports.   The sadness and empathy we feel, perhaps most of all the ‘mindfulness’ that MTT sighted, is the most beneficial result of modern media, that is, if it spurs action and not depression!

Some of the best quick-response fundraising for tragedy happens in our schools.  I was very happy to see that my children’s school immediately set the kids in motion on a “Donations for Japan” campaign.   It prompted our discussion of Japan, the culture, the food that is possibly the kids’ favorite cuisine and the great Japanese anime films.  Most recently–well before the tsunami–we watched Ponyo, an anime movie about disturbed spirits and fantastic creatures in a sea that floods a coastal village.

Water plays such a large part in the cultural imagination of Japan.  I was reminded of how much of the music of the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) makes reference to water and the sea.  Many of these works such as Takemitsu’s “Waterways” and “I Hear the Water Dreaming” are willowy and contemplative, taking in the view of a placid sea, communicating the calm that one feels in the presence of peaceful water.

Another piece, “Waves,” (for clarirent, french horn, trombone and bass drum) presents a different sense of water–more mysterious, unpredictable and potentially dangerous.

An early experimental work from 1960 by Takemitsu, which demonstrates his fascination with water was broad and lifelong, was his Musique concrete work, Water Music.

The composition that put Toru Takemitsu on the musical map for many was his Requiem, written in 1957 in homage to his fellow composer Fumio Hayasaka.    Fittingly, the New York Philharmonic under the direction of their Japanese-American Music Director Alan Gilbert has made a recording of this beautiful work, available for download (more information here: http://nyphil.org/concertsticks/japan.cfm).   The proceeds will go to the people of Japan.