TAKEMITSU Quatrain, A Flock Descends Into the Pentagonal Garden / Seiji Ozawa | Deutsche Grammophon

Tōru Takemitsu’s Quatrain (1975) and A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden (1977) exemplify his synthesis of Western avant-garde techniques and Japanese aesthetics.

In Quatrain, scored for clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and orchestra, Takemitsu evokes the Japanese concept of ma – the space between things – through fluid shifts of timbre and atmosphere. He likened the work to an emaki, a picture scroll unfolding scene by scene, where each musical idea is independent yet interwoven.

A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden, inspired by a dream, expands these ideas into a circular, nonlinear sound world. Its “flock” motif, first heard in the oboe, descends into a shimmering harmonic field created by the strings – the “garden.” Here, Takemitsu’s sense of time and space becomes immersive and cyclical rather than progressive.

Both pieces merge modernist innovation with deeply rooted Japanese sensibility. By embracing his cultural heritage within the structures of Western art music, Takemitsu reshaped the avant-garde, bridging modernism and postmodernism, and offering works that still sound strikingly fresh and timeless today.

The vinyl was mastered and cut from the original analogue 2-track master tapes by Rainer Maillard and Sidney Claire Meyer at Emil Berliner Studios and features original artwork and a newly designed, beautifully crafted collector’s sleeve. It is released as a limited and numbered edition on 1 May and is now available for pre-order.