Tōru Takemitsu | Songbook

Written in 1977, Takemitsu's Songs are—far from being transcriptions or reductions—to be considered true rewrites. Tōru Takemitsu discovered Western music in 1944 through clandestine listening to hit songs from the US and Europe. He used to call himself "a composer of Western music living in Japan." Nevertheless, there has always been a strongly "Japanese" component in his music, and in the Songs this is revealed in the co-presence of silence and sound, emptiness and presence. From "Over the Rainbow" to the "Internationale", from "Summertime" to the Beatles, Giacomo Palazzesi's EP is an ideal Songbook—songs that are already part of our DNA, heard as if for the first time.