Shit, folks... I've had this boxset for over 2 years now, but I don't believe I ever reviewed it. I'm just sitting here now listening to "The Petrified Forest" (化石の森) and man, this is as good as it gets. Every time I dive into this set, I just pick a volume and track at random, and I'm never dissatisfied with anything I choose to listen to from it. I have to say though, my favorite volumes are 1 and 4, which have a lot of his soundtracks to horror films like Kwaidan and Woman of the Dunes. They're all stand-outs though. I've heard a rumour that a "complete" set of his music for films was released in a massive 20 + CD set, but I've never been able to find any info about it, so I guess it's just rumour or maybe it's scheduled for release at some point in the unknown future. Anyway, this set will definitely get you started.Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) was perhaps the greatest Japanese composer of all time. His music "wed the western aesthetics of impressionism and expressionism with the eastern aesthetic of meditation and contemplation. The resulting synthesis was an elegant exploration of musical chromatism, with little or no interest for dynamics." (source)
He also wrote a crapload of excellent film scores, for many famous directors (see below). This Japan-only, 7-volume re-issue box set compiles some of his best and most popular work for film and is very difficult to find here in the west. The original issue of this was a 6-volume set, which became almost impossible to find until a few years ago when the re-issue was released w/ a bonus disc full of excerpts from other scores and interviews w/ Takemitsu himself.If you're a fan of film soundtracks at all and just plain good composing, you had better track this down. Some of this music will make your hair stand on end, some of it will bring you close to tears, some of it will make you overjoyed. It's all here, so dig into it.
English titles/track listing for the films:
Directed by Masaki Kobayashi
1-1 Kwaidan/Ghost Stories
1-2 Harakiri
1-3 Glowing Autumn
1-4 The Inheritance
1-5 Hymn to a Tired Man
1-6 The Fossil
Directed by Masahiro Shinoda
2-1 The Petrified Forest
2-2 Silence
2-3 With Beauty & Sorrow
2-4 The Assassin
2-5 Samurai Spy
2-6 Ballad of Orin
2-7 Clouds at Sunset
Directed by Nagisa Oshima/Susumu Hani
3-1 Empire of Passion
3-2 The Man Who Left His Will on Film
3-3 Dear Summer Sister
3-4 The Ceremony
3-5 Bad Boys
3-6 A Full Life
Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara
4-1 The Face of Another
4-2 Summer Soliders
4-3 Pitfall
4-4 Shiroi asa
4-5 Woman in the Dunes
4-6 Jose Torres
4-7 The Ruined Map
4-8 Rikyu
Directed by Akira Kurosawa, Toichiro Narushima, Shiro Toyoda, Mikio Naruse, Shohei Imamura
5-1 Dodesukaden
5-2 Time Within Memory
5-3 Illusion of Blood
5-4 Scattered Clouds
5-5 Black Rain
Directed by Kon Ichikawa, Noboru Nakamura, Hideo Onchi
6-1 Kyoto
6-2 Alone on the Pacific
6-3 Twin Sisters of Kyoto
6-4 Nijuissai no chichi
6-5 The Kii River
6-6 Once a Rainy Day
6-7 The Call of Flesh
6-8 Wonderful Bad Woman
6-9 Shiawase
Bonus Disk
7-1 Beast Alley (Eizo Sugawa)
7-2 Saigo no shinpan (Hiromichi Horikawa)
7-3 Sabita en (Masahisa Sadanaga)
7-4 Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees (Masahiro Shinoda)
7-5 to 7-17 Conversation with Toru Takemitsu
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