Canon in the Smelting Pot: Takemitsu Toru

I was rewatching My Neighbor Totoro for the umpteenth time recently. My SO had requested to see it, and that's not a request you just turn down. Because Totoro. Seriously, have you seen it? It's so cute! 

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Anyways. We were watching, and there's a scene where the two kids are standing next to a Jizo statue, and my SO makes an off-hand comment that the statue was kind of creepy. Granted, the way Jizo statues are presented visually is pretty ominous looking, especially the ones near the end. But Jizo himself is far from a creepy figure in Japanese culture. He is a bodhisatva, one who has obtained enlightenment but declines to enter Nirvana to help others obtain freedom from suffering. Primarily, Jizo is a protector of children. The statues are all over the place in Japan, especially near temples, but also along roads and walkways because he also protects travelers.

Granted, Jizo does have a darker side to his story: children who die before their parents are unable to reach Nirvana, and instead are condemned to pile rocks on the side of the river of the dead as penance for making their parents suffer. Jizo goes to the riverbank to protect the children from wandering devils, hiding them in his robes until the devils go away. Not exactly light-hearted stuff you'd expect in a children's movie, but there it is. Can't exactly wish it away, especially since confronting death is a primary theme of the movie. Miyazaki don't pull punches. 

After my SO's reaction to a very common and what I can only imagine is a welcome figure in Japanese culture, it led me to wonder how many other visual symbols pass over the heads of American audiences when watching the film. The Jizo statues, divine yoshiro trees, references to Shinto purification rituals... There's a lot in there which is very Japan specific, and while great credit must go to team Ghibli for crafting a truly universal story, a great deal of the iconography is lost on American audiences. Heck, the quandary can be generalized to any literature crossing from one culture to another. Symbols that are taken for granted, or have a particular emotional resonance to them, are in danger of being completely overlooked or misunderstood. 

I bring this up in a music blog because the same thing absolutely applies to music from other cultures. It even applies to music of the official Western Canon, hallowed be its name. When is the last time you heard hunting horn calls outside of a concert hall? You may be able to recognize them intellectually, but that is a rather different thing than growing up with the sound emblazoned in your ears, filling your head with fantasies of the hunt and all its attendant luxury. Because remember... nobles owned the hunting grounds, and common people could be put to death for poaching the prey of the upper class...

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Takemitsu Toru could be considered part of the Classical Canon, I suppose, but surely not in the same way as Beethoven. I was curious and checked the NYPhil's program archives, and the last time Takemitsu's music was performed was back in 2015. Before that, Takemitsu's music wasn't really performed regularly by the NY Philharmonic, with the exception of Seiji Ozawa's appearances as guest conductor from the 60's-70's. A far cry from the obligatory litany of Beethoven symphonies that are performed everytime Beethoven's birthday rolls around. Or even when it's not Beethoven's birthday.

Right. So Takemitsu is known primarily as a figure in the 20th century avant-garde. It's curious. I wrote a research paper focused on Takemitsu in 2007, and all the papers I read made it sound like Takemitsu's great achievement was synthesizing traditional Japanese music with European music, a seemless integration and assimilation of disparate parts, a triumph of globalism transcending cultural boundaries. But that's not how Takemitsu talks about his music. Rather, he talks about his music in the language of Zen koans, in which the juxtaposition of irreconcilably different pieces defies logical interpretation, forcing one's consciousness into pure experience. Hardly sounds like "assimilation" or "integration" to me.

Also, every essay I've read focuses, naturally, on his music. That makes sense. But many of them mention, totally in passing!, that Takemitsu was also... a celebrity chef. He also wrote a Lovecraftian detective novel which he insists is untranslatable. Now. Excuse me when I ask, why oh why has nobody studied how Takemitsu ended up as a celebrity chef, of all things? It is easily the most interesting part of his biography! And why can't I buy his book? Come on, Simon & Schuster! Get on it! Ah well. Like all things crossing time and space, so many things are lost in translation...