Takemitsu and Russell

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Contemporary Music Review, 2002, Vol. 21, No. 4, 73±109
Takemitsu and the Lydian Chromatic Concept

of George Russell
Peter Burt
Takemitsu frequently hinted that his harmonic language had been greatly in¯uenced by his 1961
reading of The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization for Improvisation (1959, Concept
Publishing Co.) by the American jazz musician George Russell (b. 1923). However, he gave little
indication as to how this in¯uence might actually be re¯ected in the speci®c harmonic practice of his
own music. The following article attempts to suggest some tentative answers to this question, albeit
for the most part rather hypothetical ones. Beginning with a summary of Russell's Concept, it goes on
to suggest points of similarity between Russell's theories and Takemitsu's music, concentrating in
particular on the latter's use of modally derived harmonic types; it also addresses one or two
important differences between the two composers' harmonic thinking. The paper ends by considering
in detail the Takemitsu score in which the debt to Russell's theories is most explicitly acknowledged:
his 1966 work for seventeen solo strings The Dorian Horizon.
KEYWORDS: Takemitsu, George Russell, Lydian Chromatic Concept, mode, pantonality, The Dorian
Horizon
Among the many revelations that Takemitsu appears to have made to the critic
Takashi Tachibana, during the thirty hours of interviews that eventually
appeared in the magazine Bungakukai towards the close of his life, one of the
most intriguing is his choice of two monographs on compositional theory for a
singularly exalted honour: that of ``palpably the ®nest books dealing with music
written this century'' (Tachibana 1994: 230).
The ®rst of Takemitsu's two nominations for this title is unsurprising enough,
especially for anyone familiar with his own harmonic vocabulary. The in¯uence
of Messiaen's Technique de mon langage musical on the latter ± expressing itself
most clearly, of course, in the use of the ``modes of limited transposition'' ± was
apparent in Takemitsu's music even before this text had appeared in the Japanese
translation of Kishio Hirao (1954). For this it appears we must thank the
composer Toshi Ichiyanagi ± or rather his father, who, having acquired some
scores of Messiaen's music from Paris a few years earlier and being of the opinion
that his son should not take them for a model, passed them on instead to that
``comical youth'', Takemitsu (Takemitsu 1985: 70, quoted in Miyamoto 1996: 5).
But the second of the books singled out for distinction by Takemitsu is a rather
more surprising choice, and later in the interview referred to the composer
describes the somewhat fortuitous manner in which he ®rst became acquainted
with this unlikely text. In 1961, the bass player of The Kingston Trio, an English
Contemporary Music Review
ISSN 0749-4467 print/ISSN 1477-2256 online # 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd
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DOI:0749446022000036481
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74 Peter Burt
folk group visiting Japan, approached Takemitsu to request some arrangements

of Japanese folk songs. He also happened to mention that he was carrying a
typewritten copy of an `ìnteresting book'', entrusted to him by an American jazz
musician in the hope that he could ®nd a publisher for it, and asked Takemitsu
whether he would like to read it. Despite his limited command of English,
Takemitsu agreed and, dictionary in hand, spent about a month ploughing
through the text, `òverwhelmed by the excellence'' of the author's ideas
(Takemitsu 1996: 158). And thus it transpired that Takemitsu ± at least according
to his own version of events (Tachibana 1994: 232) ± became `òne of the ®rst
people in the world'' to read The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organisation for
Improvisation by the American jazz composer and theorist George Russell
(b. 1923): the second of his two nominations for best music book of the twentieth
century, and by his own admission a profound in¯uence on his musical thinking
ever since.
Doubt has been cast on the authenticity of some of Tachibana's interviews, and
there are certainly inconsistencies in the account of events presented above ± not
the least of which is the fact that the publication date of Russell's work (1959)
suggests that it appeared two years before these events are supposed to have
taken place.1 Nevertheless, the broad outlines of the version of events recorded
by Tachibana correspond to those of Takemitsu's own account in the article
already cited (Takemitsu 1996), and there can certainly be no doubting the
essential facts that Takemitsu read Russell's work, and found it profoundly
stimulating. ``Russell's way of thinking about music, in particular the Lydian
Chromatic Concept, has had a strong in¯uence on me,'' Takemitsu is said to have
confessed to Tachibana at another point; ``whenever or wherever I'm asked, I
assert that my music has received in¯uences from George Russell'' (Tachibana
1994: 231).
While this ``strong in¯uence'' has occasionally been mentioned in passing by
commentators on Takemitsu, until the recent appearance of an article on the
subject in Japanese (Yamashita 2000) very little light has been shed on the manner
in which this in¯uence might have operated to determine speci®c details of the
composer's music. The present study attempts to go a little way towards
remedying this lacuna, and at the very minimum tentatively placing some
signposts in this relatively unknown territory, which may possibly serve as
guides for a more exhaustive exploration by other scholars at a future date.
Relevant aspects of Takemitsu's own harmonic language will be scrutinized for
areas that overlap with Russell's theories, and the study will conclude with an
examination of the work of Takemitsu's in which his debt to Russell is most
explicitly acknowledged: The Dorian Horizon for seventeen string instruments
(1966). As a preliminary to these, however, it will be necessary ®rst to give a brief
outline of those elements of Russell's ``concept'' which seem relevant to the
purposes of this enquiry, and whose `èxcellence'' might particularly have struck
Takemitsu as he ®rst struggled through that typewritten text.
Outline of George Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept

Russell's Concept has acquired something of a reputation for intimidating
complexity, but its basics are simply stated. His method is designed to help
jazz musicians create modal improvisations over single chords or sequences of
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Takemitsu and George Russell 75
chords. To this end, the performer ®rst rationalizes the chord in question as a
``de®nable'' harmonic structure based on superimpositions of thirds (i.e. as a
seventh, ninth, thirteenth, etc.), and then locates it on a specially prepared chart.
This tells the performer which scale ``best conveys the sound of the chord'' ±
what Russell calls the ``parent scale''. The parent scale will always be one of a
family of six scales which Russell suggests as the basis for improvisation,
transposed as necessary to harmonize most effectively with the particular
chord. For various reasons, the most fundamental of this family of scales ± that
suggested as ``best expressing'' the sound of a common major triad ± is what
Russell refers to as the ``Lydian Scale'' with raised fourth, as shown in ®gure 1.
Russell chooses this scale rather than, as one would expect, the major diatonic
because he believes the latter ``does not completely ful®l, agree with or satisfy the
tonality of its tonic major triad'' (Russell 1959: i). He advances various reasons to
substantiate this claim, and his own preference for the Lydian Scale as a more
appropriate alternative: the lower tetrachord of a diatonic scale implies a
resolution onto the subdominant; the ®rst seven notes of a cycle of ®fths
proceeding from a given tonic yield the Lydian ``scale''; if all seven notes of a
diatonic scale are played as a cluster, ``the fourth of the scale . . . seems to emerge
as the tonic of the harmonic structure'' (Russell 1959: ii). Having thus decided on
this scale as his basis, Russell then generates from it ®ve other possible ``parent''
forms. The ®rst of these is designed to accommodate augmented triads and more
complex chords based on them, and consequently raises the ®fth degree of ®gure
1 by a semitone, thereby creating what Russell refers to as the ``Lydian
Augmented Scale'' (®gure 2). Analogously, by lowering the third degree of his
basic Lydian scale Russell produces a form which can be used successfully in
conjunction with ``the diminished chord family'': a ``Lydian Diminished Scale''
(®gure 3).
The pitches of all three of the above scales, added together, produce what
Russell refers to as the ``Nine Tone Scale'', and in order to complete what he calls
the ``Lydian Chromatic Scale'', he adds three more to this set, the so-called
auxiliary scales, which are `ìncluded in the body of scales of a Lydian Chromatic
Scale because they represent basic and distinctive tonal shades of it'' (Russell
1959: x). The ®rst of these supplies the missing perfect fourth above the tonic:
Figure 1
Lydian Scale.
Figure 2
Lydian Augmented Scale.
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76 Peter Burt
Figure 3
Lydian Diminished Scale.
Russell calls it the `Àuxiliary Diminished Scale'' (®gure 4). Similarly, an

`Àuxiliary Augmented Scale'' (®gure 5) provides the ¯attened seventh above
the tonic, and the last remaining pitch needed to complete the total chromatic ±
the ¯attened second ± is obtained by the addition of a sixth scale to the basic set,
the `Àuxiliary Diminished Blues'' (®gure 6).
Later, Russell added two more scales to this set, both ``because of their use in
horizontal situations, and because of their social and historical signi®cance''
(Russell 1959: xii): the ``Major Scale'' itself, and the ``Blues Scale'' (®gure 7), which
he delightfully de®nes as ``simply a funky version of the major scale'' (Russell
1959: 38). Furthermore, one of his commentators suggests that since the publica-
tion of his book Russell has expanded his modal resources even further by the
addition of a ``Lydian ¯at 7'' scale (Jeanquartier 1984: 37).
Figure 4
Auxiliary Diminished Scale.
Figure 5
Auxiliary Augmented Scale.
Figure 6
Auxiliary Diminished Blues Scale.
Figure 7
Blues Scale.
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While any of the above basic scales may be suggested by Russell's chart as the
``parent scale'' which ``best conveys'' the sound of a particular chord, the
improviser is nevertheless at liberty to use any of the other scales based on the
same tonic as well: ``the parent scale may be thought of as the prime colour and
the other ®ve scales on the chart represent colours related to the prime colour''
(Russell 1959: 4). By combining the six scales, indeed, the improvisation may
include all twelve pitch classes, thereby utilizing what Russell calls the ``Lydian
Chromatic Scale'', of which there are twelve, each beginning on a different
degree of the chromatic scale.
The type of improvisation so far described, in which ``the choice of scales is
determined by the prevailing chord'' (Russell 1959: 22) is referred to by Russell as
``vertical polymodality'', and is further subdivided by him into two types.
`Ìngoing'' vertical melodies are ``derived from a member scale of the Lydian
Chromatic Scale [i.e. from one of the scales shown in ®gures 1±6] determined by a
chord'', which is used as a basis for `àbsolute'' or ``chromatically enhanced''
melodies (Russell 1959: 23). `Òutgoing'' vertical melodies are, by contrast, not
scale-derived but ``derived from the body of intervals of the Lydian Chromatic
Scale itself '' (Russell 1959: 25), in other words are more or less ``freely chro-
matic''. In addition to these two ``vertical'' situations, however, Russell's theory
also admits of the possibility of what he calls ``horizontal polymodality''. Here
the word ``horizontal'' is used in a speci®c sense which differs somewhat from its
conventional meaning. Russell de®nes as a horizontal situation one which occurs
``when we impose a single Lydian Chromatic Scale . . . upon a sequence of
chords'' (Russell 1959: 28); thus, in contrast to the ``vertical'' situation, ``the scale
we choose conveys the tonal centre to the listener rather than the chord'' (Russell
1959: 28) and, as a consequence, ``scales containing the fourth, such as the Major,
Blues or the Auxiliary Diminished Scales, are usually the most ideal scales to
employ in horizontal situations'' (Russell 1959: 30). The types of improvised line
employed in such circumstances may again be divided into two categories,
analogous to those found in ``vertical polymodality'': `ìngoing'' melodies (once
again `àbsolute'' or ``chromatically enhanced''), whose basis is `à scale . . . of the
Lydian Chromatic Scale determined by the resolving tendency of two or more
chords, the key of the music or our own aesthetic judgement'' (Russell 1959: 33);
and `òutgoing'' melodies, ``derived from the intervals of the Lydian Chromatic
Scale'' (Russell 1959: 35) determined by these same factors.
In a later technical appendix to his work, added in 1964, Russell further
subdivides the `òutgoing'' category of improvisation into three types. `Òutgoing
Modal Melodies'' make use of `à mode of a Lydian Scale for the freely chromatic
formation of a melody, a part of a melody, a phrase, or a motive; they may also
use several modes one after the other'' (Dauer 1982: 117). ``Pan-modal Melodies''
``may be described as rapidly modulating'' versions of the above (Russell 1959:
D), in which what Russell describes as ``scale degree modulation'' (in effect, the
use of common pivot tones) provides an important resource for linking each
successive scale to its predecessor. Finally, ``Chromatic Melodies'' derive ``from
the body of intervals of the chromatic scale itself '' (Russell 1959: E); in the
example Russell gives, the melodic line achieves a certain logic within this
apparent total freedom by the repeated use of speci®c ``thematic'' intervals.
``Freely chromatic'' as this last category may be, however, Russell is empha-
tically not an `àtonalist'', and believes that even such constructions as these can
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78 Peter Burt
still be related to a tonal centre. To this end he provides an adjunct to his text in
the shape of the ``Tonal Gravity Chart'', a rather formidable-looking array of
®gures and roman numerals whose basic purpose is to show how ``far out'' a
particular interval may be from the ``tonic'' of the piece. Essentially, the chart
determines this distance from the tonic by means of the combination of two
criteria, based respectively on the cycle of ®fths and an arrangement of Russell's
scales into a (somewhat arbitrary) vertical hierarchical ordering. For example, if
the interval in question occurs in the Lydian Scale itself (®gure 1), with the ®rst
degree of that scale as its lowest note (e.g. major second), Russell places a roman
numeral I in the Lydian Scale area at the top of his chart; if the interval is to be
found on the ®fth degree as well, a roman V is also placed in the same area, but if
not, Russell passes down the table of scales until he ®nds the ®rst scale in which
the interval may be found on the ®fth degree, and places the appropriate numeral
there. He then repeats this process for degree II of the scale, and so on all the way
round the cycle of ®fths. The resultant chart may then be used by an analyst to
determine how ``far out'' a particular melodic interval is from the overall tonal
centre of a piece. The closer the interval lies to the top of the chart (the basic
Lydian Scale), the more ``consonant'' it will be with the tonic of the piece; the
nearer to the bottom (the full twelve-note Lydian Chromatic Scale), the more ``far
out''.
Finally, a further chart, the ``Circle of Close to Distant Relationships'', enables
the composer to
judge the tonal distance between one chord and another chord, consequently making it possible to
construct chord patterns and make substitutions on the basis of our aesthetic need for a close or . . .
distant relationship between one chord and another. (Russell 1959: 45)
Russell starts out from the premise that each chord category is proper to a
particular degree of a Lydian Chromatic Scale, for example: that major and
altered major chords occur on degree I, sevenths and altered sevenths on degree
II, etc. A dominant seventh on E[, for example, would therefore imply the D[
Lydian Chromatic Scale, on whose second degree it occurs. Russell then
arranges all twelve degrees of an abstract Lydian Chromatic Scale, notated as
roman numerals, in a circle clockwise according to the cycle of ®fths. To use the
Circle, the composer identi®es the fundamental tonic of the piece with the
roman numeral I, and then locates the position in the circle of ``the last
permanently established Lydian Chromatic Scale'' (ibid.). If the tonic of the
piece were A[, for example, then the D[ Lydian Chromatic Scale of the above
hypothetical example would be found on degree IV, only one step removed in
an anti-clockwise (¯at) direction from the tonic of the piece. The composer must
then decide if the next chord is to be derived from a ``nearby or far removed
Lydian Chromatic Scale'' (ibid.), bearing in mind the other choices offered by the
last permanently established scale. Having made this decision, the composer
analyzes the distance travelled from the overall parent scale of the piece, and
then repeats the same procedure over again. The Circle thus performs a similar
favour for chords and their progressions to that which the ``Tonal Gravity
Chart'' performs for melodic intervals: as the latter indicates to what extent a
particular interval is ``far out'' relative to the prevailing Lydian Chromatic Scale,
the former demonstrates how ``far out'' a particular chord is relative to the
overall tonal centre of the piece.
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Takemitsu and Russell: Comparisons

The reader who has persevered thus far will probably have realized that much of
the apparent ``complexity'' of Russell's theory is actually due to a certain
imprecision in the basic concepts and terminology, coupled with confusion in
the manner in which the composer's ideas are argued and presented. Critics have
not been slow to take the author to task for such shortcomings, and in particular a
series of articles that appeared in the German magazine Jazzforschung in the 1980s
(Dauer 1982, Hendler 1984, Jeanquartier 1984) constitute an entertaining example
of what happens when Russell's own uniquely ``funky'' brand of speculation
collides with the full force of Teutonic analytical rigour. The vagueness of
Russell's reasoning, however, does not seem to have deterred Takemitsu over-
much ± a fact that should not perhaps surprise us, given the abundance of this
quality in Takemitsu's own theoretical writings! As the extravagant praise he
bestowed on the Lydian Chromatic Concept testi®es, he clearly found his pains-
taking reading of Russell's work enormously stimulating, and the questions
therefore arise: What was it about Russell's Concept that so clearly struck a
sympathetic chord in Takemitsu's musical thought? What are the possible
evidences of its in¯uence on his own music?
Part of the attraction of Russell's Concept for Takemitsu may perhaps be
inferred from the fact that he brackets it together with Messiaen's Technique in
the quotation given at the beginning of this essay. One of the qualities that both
these treatises have in common is that they embody very ``practical'' forms of
``theory'', giving precise concrete directions for the construction of music rather
than abstract speculative ideas about its nature. In the words of one comment-
ator, Messiaen's work ``reads a little like a recipe book'' (Grif®ths 1985: 93), while
Russell himself uses a similarly down-to-earth metaphor to describe the ends he
had in mind in compiling his Concept. `Ìn preparing for any business, trade or
science,'' he observes, ``we generally need a great deal of preparation and study.
In painting, literature and music, we also need to learn the tools of our trade''
(Russell 1959: 1). In Russell's case these ``tools'' are not entirely metaphorical:
appended to the end pages of the Concept is a contraption known as the ``Lydian
Chromatic Slide Rule'', an alternative device for determining the parent scale of a
particular chord by moving one sheet of paper behind another.
Such eminently practical, ``hands-on'' approaches to the business of composi-
tion must surely have appealed to Takemitsu, whose view of the relationship of
``theory'' to the ®nished work differed vastly from that of composers who ± like
Stravinsky, for example ± considered ``the phenomenon of music . . . nothing
other than a phenomenon of speculation'' whose starting point was `à pre-
liminary feeling out, a will moving ®rst in an abstract realm with the object of
giving shape to something concrete'' (Stravinsky 1970: 35). In Takemitsu's case,
by contrast, the starting point was always the concrete phenomenon of sound
itself: ``the task of the composer should begin with the recognition and experi-
ence of the more basic sounds themselves rather than with concern about their
function'' (Takemitsu 1995: 80). ``Speculation'' was mostly con®ned to a pre-
compositional phase in the organization of these basic sound materials to which
listeners (or analysts) had no subsequent access, and consequently need not
particularly concern themselves with. `Ì have my own theories of structure and
systematic procedure,'' the composer explained at one point, ``but I wish to avoid
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80 Peter Burt
overemphasizing these'' (Takemitsu 1995: 106), since ``theorists tend to think of

musical form as notes on paper'', but in Takemitsu's case ``the resultant sound is
my primary concern'' (Takemitsu 1995: 114).
A second aspect of Russell's Concept that must undoubtedly have exerted a
strong appeal for Takemitsu is the fact that it is founded on the idea of scale or
mode. `Ìn modern Western music the equi-tempered scale is omnipotent,''
Takemitsu once observed, ``but in my case I rather value the concept of mode''
(Takemitsu 1987: 31). This interest of Takemitsu's in mode predates not only his
reading of Russell, but his reception of Messiaen's music as well: his very earliest
(and subsequently mostly suppressed) essays in composition under the tutelage
of the Japanese composer Yasuji Kiyose (1899±1981) made use of the pentatonic
scales of Japanese folk music, and as Timothy Koozin has observed this `ìdea of a
scale-based compositional idiom sets an important precedent for Takemitsu's
later use of octatonic and whole-tone collections'' (Koozin 1988: 20). As the latter
part of Koozin's statement suggests, Takemitsu's modal vocabulary was also
soon enriched by the discovery of Messiaen's music; but while the adoption of
the octatonic mode in particular has received much attention from Takemitsu
scholars, the modal resources which the composer habitually employs in fact
comprise a much larger thesaurus of scales than simply the ``modes I and II'' of
Messiaen's theory. To redress the balance, therefore, it may at this point be
appropriate to take a brief detour to examine Takemitsu's modal universe ±
noting in particular any resemblances to Russell's theory which may imply either
an in¯uence from or, at the very least, a prior sympathy with the ideas of the
American master. In an attempt to deal with the matter systematically, the scales
will be considered in ascending order, according to the number of notes per
octave.
Takemitsu's modal resources

Pentatonic The pentatonic scales of Japanese folk music, with which Takemitsu
experimented in his very earliest compositions, are traditionally classi®ed into
two types: yoÅ (light) and in (dark), terms which correspond to the Chinese yang
and yin, familiar to Westerners from Taoist philosophy. The in scale, a form
containing semitones and differing in its ascending and descending forms, is the
most ``Japanese-sounding'' of the two, and perhaps for this very reason mostly
discarded by Takemitsu after these early experiments as too evocative of
``nationalist'' sentiment. Vestiges of its use in the composer's mature work are
consequently rare: those that occur, for example in the score of Litany ± in memory
of Michael Vyner (1990) derive mainly from the fact that this work is a
recomposition of a lost score from the composer's journeyman years, Futatsu
no rento (Lento in due movimenti), composed in 1950.
By contrast, the yoÅ scale ± whose interval content is identical with that of the
traditional ``pentatonic'' scale identi®ed by Western musicians with that pro-
duced from the black keys of the piano ± is used throughout Takemitsu's career.
In his later years, in fact, closure of works on a complete verticalization of all ®ve
pitches of this scale became something of a characteristic signature of the
composer. The example of pentatonic writing shown in ®gure 8, in which all
pitches from the second bar onwards lie within the ambit of the pentatonic scale
A[, B[, C, E[, F, is taken from a work to be discussed in more detail later in this
article, The Dorian Horizon.
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Furthermore, in addition to vertical superimpositions of the pitches of a

pentatonic scale, Takemitsu also occasionally used it horizontally ± as in the
next illustration (®gure 9) from his Green for orchestra (1967). Here the upper-
most, melodic voice (third staff from the top) contains all ®ve pitches of a
pentatonic scale, E±F]±G]±B±C].
Hexatonic While the melodic line of ®gure 9 may be pentatonic, the accompany-
ing harmonies are more freely chromatic, and in most instances are actually
derived from verticalized forms of other scalar types. Examination of the second
chord, for example, reveals that it consists of a superimposition of the six pitches
of a whole-tone scale, another of the modal types favoured by Takemitsu, and
one which appears very early on in his work, presumably as a result of his
encounter with the music of Debussy. Vertical uses such as that found in ®gure 9
are more commonplace in Takemitsu's music, but one occasionally comes across
horizontal presentations of this collection as well, as in the example (®gure 10)
from November Steps (1967), where the trumpet realizes a complete statement of
an ascending whole-tone scale beginning on B[.
Figure 8
The Dorian Horizon, bb. 80±83. # 1967 by Ongaku no Tomo Sha Corp. Used by permission.
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82 Peter Burt
Figure 9
Green, bar 1. Edition Peters No. 66300 # 1969 by C F Peters Corporation, New York.
Reproduced by kind permission of Peters Edition Limited, London.
The whole-tone scale is, of course, identical with the `Àuxiliary Augmented
Scale'' of Russell's theory, and although Takemitsu had been using it independ-
ently for several years before his exposure to Russell's work, his discovery of its
inclusion amongst the latter's basic scalar materials must nevertheless have
struck him as a vindication of what he was already doing. According to
Jeanquartier (1984: 12) however, many jazz musicians understand by the term
`àugmented scale'' something quite different: an alternative symmetrical hexa-
tonic scale alternating semitones with minor thirds (i.e. [0,1,4,5,8,9] ). This collec-
tion, to which I shall refer by the name Allen Forte (1973: 180) gives it in his
classi®ed table ± 6±20 ± has also been familiar to classical musicians since at least
the time of Liszt's Faust Symphony, whose famous augmented triad ``series''
comprises two such collections. Liszt's usage also reveals two interesting proper-
ties of this collection: the fact that it is ``hexachordally combinatorial'', or may be
combined with a transposition of itself to generate a twelve-note series; and the
fact that it can be formed from two augmented triads a semitone apart.
Takemitsu, who makes fairly frequent reference to the 6±20 collection, was also
clearly familiar with both of these attributes, as is demonstrated by ®gure 11 from
Figure 10
November Steps, bb. 17±18. Edition Peters No. 66299 # 1967 by C F Peters Corporation, New York.
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Figure 11
Fantasma/Cantos II, G/1. # Copyright 1999 by Schott Japan Company Limited. International
Copyright Secured. Reproduced by permission.
Fantasma/Cantos II for trombone and orchestra (1994), which presents the total-
chromatic in the form of two 6±20 collections or four augmented triads ± with the
additional interesting feature that the pitches of the lowest voice spell out the
name of a composer towards whom Takemitsu was becoming increasingly
attracted in later life: B±A±C±H.
Additionally, however, the 6±20 collection also admits of segmentation in three
different ways into a major and a minor triad, in which the root of the latter is
always a major third below that of the former. Figure 12, from A Flock Descends
into the Pentagonal Garden (1977), which superimposes a B[-minor triad over a D-
major one, indicates that Takemitsu was also aware of this possibility.
Heptatonic Of the seven-note scalar collections employed by Takemitsu, the most

familiar is the everyday diatonic collection of Western music and its various
modal variants (Ionian, Dorian, etc.) Takemitsu's preference is generally to use
such scales to generate vertical superimpositions rather than horizontal lines, as
in ®gure 13 from Litany, which ± appropriately enough perhaps, given the topic
Figure 12
A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden, C/2. Copyright (1977) Editions Salabert, Paris.
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84 Peter Burt
Figure 13
Litany II, bar 30. Reproduced by permission of Schott & Co. Ltd.
of our present discussion ± verticalizes all pitches of a ``D Lydian'' mode.

Takemitsu also makes fairly frequent reference to another heptatonic collection,
the so-called acoustic scale with sharpened fourth and ¯attened seventh, as
illustrated for example by the chord from Rain Coming quoted in ®gure 14.
Interestingly, the mode of the scale that is verticalized in this last example, with
C as root, corresponds exactly to that mode which Russell calls the Lydian
Augmented Scale (®gure 2). While it is possible that Takemitsu may have
encountered the acoustic scale a good few years before his exposure to Russell's
theories, thanks once again to his early familiarity with Debussy (e.g. the opening
of Nuages), it is nevertheless true that the earliest instance of its use in
Takemitsu's own work known to the present author ± a verticalized ``panacous-
tic'' chord occurring in bar 41 of Piano Distance ± dates from 1961, the same year
as his reading of the Lydian Chromatic Concept. It is not impossible, therefore, that
in the present instance Russell's theory did not simply con®rm Takemitsu in a
practice already established, but actually suggested to him an expansion of his
modal harmonic vocabulary.
Both the acoustic scale and Russell's Lydian Augmented Scale are, of course,
modes of what Western harmonic theory refers to as the ascending form of the
melodic minor scale. The more theoretical companion-piece to the latter in the
harmony textbooks ± the harmonic minor scale ± is another heptatonic scale for
which Takemitsu was to ®nd occasional uses. For instance, the chord marked
Figure 14
Rain Coming, D/6. # Copyright 1983 by Schott Japan Company Limited.
International Copyright Secured. Reproduced by permission.
d:/1cmr/21-4/057.3d ± 14/2/3 ± 11:32 ± t&f/sh
`À'' in the passage quoted from Eucalypts (®gure 15) verticalizes all seven pitch
classes of what a Western theorist might parse as ``B harmonic minor'' (reading
the B[ as its enharmonic equivalent).
While the intervallic inversion of an ascending melodic minor scale is simply
identical with its prime form, inverting this harmonic minor yields a kind of
``nonce'' form, which may variously be conceived as a major scale with ¯attened
sixth, or melodic minor with sharpened fourth. The former conception is
re¯ected by the name given to this scale by certain jazz theorists, ``harmonic
major'' (see Jeanquartier 1984: 22); the latter, of course, by the name George
Russell bestows upon it, ``Lydian Diminished Scale''. The occasional uses of this
scale in Takemitsu's music ± or at least, those known to the present writer ±
Figure 15
Eucalypts, D/2. Copyright (1970) Editions Salabert, Paris.
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86 Peter Burt
would all seem to occur after his exposure to Russell's theories, and in this
instance, therefore, it is quite legitimate to consider the possibility of a direct
inheritance. Figure 16, a complete horizontal statement of the scale, occurs in
Coral Island (1962); ®gure 17, which presents in vertical superimposition precisely
the same pitches, is taken from the much later Entre-temps for oboe and string
quartet (1986).
Octatonic The use of the eight-note collection usually referred to simply as the
`òctatonic scale'', [0,1,3,4,6,7,9,10], is by far the most conspicuous aspect of
Takemitsu's modal usage, apparent even at the level of super®cial aural
encounter. No doubt on account of this, it has been already been much
commented on by Takemitsu scholars, and the reader who wishes to learn
more about the subject has no shortage of sources to which to turn.2 The relative
obviousness of Takemitsu's use of this mode, compared with his other modal
practices, in part stems from the directness with which he tends to use it. Whole
passages of his music may lie entirely within the ambit of one of the three
available transpositions of the scale, and their musical materials may on occasion
use the device as baldly as in the passage from the guitar work All in Twilight
Figure 16
Coral Island, Poem 2, bar 30. Copyright (1962) Editions Salabert, Paris.
Figure 17
Entre-temps, bar 51. # Copyright 1987 by Schott Japan Company Limited.
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(1987) and its free retrograde quoted in ®gure 18, which both consist simply of
two-part realisations of the octatonic scale in, respectively, descending and
ascending forms. Takemitsu, of course, also frequently uses vertical forms
selected from the pitches of the octatonic scale or even superimposing all of
them simultaneously, as is the case with both of the chords from The Dorian
Horizon shown in ®gure 19.
This same scale is also widely known in jazz circles, where it apparently goes
by the name of the ``diminished scale'', and of course two transpositions of it
appear in Russell's system, as his Auxiliary Diminished and Auxiliary Dimin-
ished Blues scales. However, in this instance it is quite clear that Takemitsu's
adoption of the scale did not stem from Russell's in¯uence, but rather from that
of Olivier Messiaen, with whose music he had come into contact over ten years
previously. For the octatonic scale is also none other than the ``second mode of
limited transposition'' of Messiaen, and the degree to which Takemitsu came
under the spell of its use by the latter is apparent in one of the ®rst works written
after his exposure to Messiaen's music, the second movement of the Lento in due
movimenti (1950). If it is possible to speak of any `ìn¯uence'' from Russell on this
aspect of Takemitsu's compositional practice, therefore, it must again take the
form of an encouraging vindication of a practice already established, rather than
of any novel addition to the composer's harmonic resources.
Despite the common use of the term `òctatonic scale'' to describe this
formation, however, it is of course not the only scale that may be formed from
eight notes. Messiaen's Technique itself describes two other octatonic scales of
symmetrical construction, respectively modes IV ( [0,1,2,3,6,7,8,9] ) and VI
Figure 18
All in Twilight, scalar octatonic materials. # Copyright 1999 by Schott Japan Company Limited.
d:/1cmr/21-4/057.3d ± 14/2/3 ± 11:32 ± t&f/sh
88 Peter Burt
Figure 19
The Dorian Horizon, bar 113. # 1967 by Ongaku no tome Sha Corp. Used by permission.
( [0,1,2,4,6,7,8,10] ). While the author has not been able to discover any use of the
former by Takemitsu, the latter is certainly to be found in his work, albeit rather
infrequently. In the two illustrations of its use taken from Eucalypts (1971), the
®rst (®gure 20) presents in horizontal form what Messiaen would have referred
to as the ``second transposition'' of this mode, the second (®gure 21) presents the
``®rst transposition'' as a vertical collection.
Nine or more notes per octave Chromatically denser harmonic structures than the
above, which may nevertheless still be rationalized as projections of an under-
lying mode, also occur occasionally in Takemitsu's music. Two of the other
``modes of limited transposition'' enumerated by Messiaen, for example, would
also appear to be referred to by Takemitsu. The ®rst of these, the nine-note scale
classi®ed by Messiaen as ``mode III'' ( [0,1,2,4,5,6,8,9,10] ), is apparently also
known as the ``Tcherepnin scale'' ± rather ironically, perhaps, in view of that
Russian composer's singular contribution to the cultivation of Western-style
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Figure 20
Eucalypts, G/1. Copyright (1970) Editions Salabert, Paris.
Figure 21
Eucalypts, D/4. Copyright (1970) Editions Salabert, Paris.
composition in Japan, and to the emergence of the ``Nationalist'' school in

particular. In ®gure 22, from Takemitsu's Asterism for piano and orchestra
(1967), the celesta projects all nine pitches of this scale, in what Messiaen
would have referred to as its ``second transposition''.
The other ``Messiaen'' scale encountered in Takemitsu's music is Mode VII,
[0,1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9,10], a ten-note collection that is the densest of the ``modes of
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90 Peter Burt
Figure 22
Asterism, Letter D (celesta). Edition Peters No. 66298 # 1969 by C F Peters Corporation, New York.
limited transposition'', consisting of all the pitches of the total chromatic minus a
tritone dyad. Since the number of possible ten-note sets of any sort that may be
constructed is only six, there is a greater likelihood than heretofore that such
collections, when they occur in Takemitsu's music, are simply attributable to
chance rather than any conscious reference to Messiaen's theories. Nevertheless,
the sum of all the pitches on the ®rst three semi-quaver beats in the example from
Green (®gure 23) certainly yields a statement of this mode in its third transposi-
tion, immediately repeated a whole tone higher (®fth transposition).
As duly noted in passing, the above brief digression on Takemitsu's use of mode
has already thrown up a number of correspondences between his own method of
procedure and Russell's, whether as the result of direct in¯uence or of a
coincidental similarity of outlook. The number of points of contact, however, is
considerably enlarged when one goes on to examine the suggestive oppositions
by means of which Russell categorises improvised melodies, which, it will be
recalled, are (in descending hierarchical ordering, the terms of each pair capable
of further subdivision by the terms of the succeeding pair): vertical/horizontal;
ingoing/outgoing; absolute/chromatically enhanced. For example, all the modal
usages in the above examples from Takemitsu's music have constituted what
Russell might describe as `àbsolute'' references to the mode in question.
However, the alternative procedure recommended by Russell ± ``chromatic
enhancement'' of a mode by addition of extraneous pitches ± is also one very
much favoured by Takemitsu, and found throughout his work from the earliest
days onwards. In the opening soprano entry from Coral Island, for instance
(®gure 24), a statement of all eight pitches of an octatonic collection (``mode II3'')
is concluded and, to a certain extent, ``contradicted'' by the inclusion of a pitch
foreign to the locally prevalent mode, E\.
What takes place here in the horizontal dimension, however, is far more
frequently encountered in Takemitsu's music in a vertical sense, and with scalar
materials other than the ``second mode of limited transposition''. Of all such
``chromatically enhanced'' forms, in fact, the most ubiquitous is the type of
vertical structure which arises from the addition of one extraneous pitch to the
notes of a whole-tone scale, and to which I shall henceforth refer ± using, once
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Figure 23
Green, ®gure 6, bar 4. Edition Peters No. 66300 # 1969 by C F Peters Corporation, New York.
again, Allen Forte's terminology ± as the ``7±33'' collection. Chord `À'' in

®gure 25, from November Steps, is an example of a vertical projection of this
type, which is to be found passim in Takemitsu's music from the earliest days
onwards (chord ``C'' incidentally, it will be observed, consists of another
statement of the same ``panacoustic'' collection found in ®gure 14).
Interestingly, this same 7±33 collection ± described as a ``whole-tone scale with
natural seventh'' ± ®gures as the ®rst ``scale'' in a table compiled by Jeanquartier
listing all the forms which, he believes, Russell should have included had he been
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92 Peter Burt
Figure 24
Coral Island, p. 8, soprano entry. Copyright (1962) Editions Salabert, Paris.
more systematic in the application of his basic principles (Jeanquartier 1984: 13).3
While Russell may have ignored this scale, however, its potential is apparently
not unknown to other jazz musicians ± for example, another of its modes, which
Jeanquartier de®nes as the ``melodic minor scale with ¯attened second'' (Jean-
quartier 1984: 22), is featured on the album ``Coltrane's Sound'' in improvisations
by John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner.
Such ``chromatic enhancement'' of modally derived forms by Takemitsu may
on occasion involve the addition of more than one foreign pitch to the basic
collection. Messiaen's ``Mode VI'' itself, for example, may be thought of as a
whole-tone scale enhanced by the addition of two pitches a tritone apart, and
another eight-note ``superset'' of the whole-tone scale ± the collection
[0,1,2,3,4,6,8,10], in which the two extraneous pitches are themselves a whole
tone apart ± makes an occasional appearance in Takemitsu's music, for example
as the harmonic ®eld projected by ®gure 26 from A Flock Descends into the
Pentagonal Garden. On the other hand, however, this same harmonic form may be
derived more simply, as Takemitsu demonstrates at letter K, bar 5 of I Hear the
Water Dreaming (1987), where what starts out as a complete verticalization of an
acoustic scale is expanded by the addition of one pitch to create exactly the same
harmonic type.
Figure 25
November Steps bar 2, violin + viola (left-hand side). Edition Peters No. 66299 # 1967 by C F Peters
Corporation, New York. Reproduced by kind permission of Peters Edition Limited, London.
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It may also be possible to consider certain aspects of Takemitsu's modal

writing in terms of those higher-order oppositions of Russell's discussed
above: horizontal/vertical; ingoing/outgoing. As an example, let us examine
once again ®gure 9 from Green. To be sure, Takemitsu here is not offering a series
of modal improvisations over a chord sequence, and to apply Russell's termino-
logy one has to seek for approximate equivalents to these things. Perhaps, then,
one might consider the six-note, pentatonic melodic line as roughly equivalent to
a set of chord changes, and each of the ``harmonies'' underlying the notes as a
kind of vertical superimposition of a mode used in conjunction with it, like an
improvisatory solo ``frozen'' in the shape of a single chord. One might then ask,
®rst, whether Takemitsu''s ``polymodality'' is ``horizontal'' or ``vertical'' in
Russell's sense of these terms ± to determine which, one must in turn establish
what the overall ``tonal centre'' of the piece is. The ®ve pitches of the pentatonic
Figure 26
A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden, H/3. Copyright (1977) Editions Salabert, Paris.
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94 Peter Burt
melody lie within the ambit of both E major and A major tonalities, but there are
strong reasons for believing (from the verticalized pentatonic collection on A
with which the work ends, in particular) that the ``home key'' of the work is
actually the latter. If this is the case, then ± as we shall shortly see from the chart
below ± most of the modes employed are quite closely related to the ``tonal
centre'' of the work, and it is possible to think of Takemitsu's ``harmonization''
here as a rather ``horizontal'' one. Second, one can examine each of these
individual modes to determine the degree to which, in Russell's parlance, they
represent `ìngoing'' or `òutgoing'' responses to the basic A tonality implied by
the passage. The chords harmonizing this six-note sequence, together with the
modal forms to which they may most readily be related (here described in
``Lydian Chromatic'' terms), are shown in table 1.
It will be gathered from this table that ± as already suggested ± most of these
forms are quite closely related to the basic A tonality of the piece, and one might
therefore very tentatively conclude that the modality of the passage is for the
most part, in Russell's terminology `ìngoing'', employing either `àbsolute'' or
``chromatically enhanced'' segments of various modes beginning either on A, or
on a pitch nearly related to it in the cycle of ®fths. This conclusion is, of course,
advanced with the proviso that it is highly speculative in nature ± though,
nevertheless, the fact that all of the chords in this passage can be analysed with
reference to the Lydian Chromatic system suggests the distinct possibility that
Takemitsu at least had Russell's work at the back of his mind when composing it.
One is on surer ground, however, in considering a broader area of overlap
between Takemitsu and Russell: their common interest in a freely chromatic
music which is nevertheless tonally centred. Revealingly, both composers use the
same term to de®ne this aspect of their harmonic language: ``pantonality''. `Ìf we
believe in a tonal centre we might be called pan-tonalists,'' observes Russell at
one point (Russell 1959: xxi), later contrasting this pantonality with `àtonality'' as
`à philosophy which the new jazz may easily align itself with'' (Russell: xxii).
Takemitsu, for his part, uses a very similar vocabulary to describe his own
practice of deriving highly chromatic music from modally referential materials.
He describes The Dorian Horizon, for instance, as a ``personal, pantonal music
which takes the Dorian mode as its starting point''4, and much later, referring to
Table 1
Chords harmonizing the six-note sequence (®gure 9), together with their modal derivations.
Chord type Derivation
(1) Inversion of [0,1,3,5,7,9] ``Lydian Augmented'' on A

(2) [0,2,4,6,8,10] `Àuxiliary Augmented'' (whole-tone scale) on C, D, E. . ., etc.
(3) [0,2,3,4,6,8] Either: above scale ``chromatically enhanced'' by addition of E[; or `À
Lydian Diminished'' chromatically enhanced by addition of D\; or
`Àuxiliary Diminished'' on A, C, D] or F]² chromatically enhanced
by addition of E\
(4) [0,2,3,5,6,8] Either: `Àuxiliary Diminished'' on A, C, D] or F]; or ``Lydian
Augmented'' on A
(5) [0,1,3,4,6,8] ``Lydian Augmented'' on D
(6) [0,1,3,4,6,7] `Àuxiliary Diminished'' on A, C, D] or F]
² Or `Àuxiliary diminished blues'' on G], B, D or F.

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Far calls. Coming, far! for violin and orchestra, speaks of the ``sea of tonality from
which many pantonal chords ¯ow'' (Takemitsu 1995: 112). The origins of this
concept, in Russell's case at least, would appear to derive from Rudolph ReÂti's
well-known theories, of which there is indeed a close echo at one point in his own
writings: his explanation of the diminishing ``tonal gravity'' of intervals in the
Lydian Chromatic Scale by means of an image of the sun and eleven, ever more
distant planets, closely parallels ReÂti's metaphorical usage in his statement that
``pantonality . . . can of its nature embrace any atonal expression and can make it
a part of its own planetary system of multiple tonalities'' (ReÂti 1958: 111).
Moreover, to illustrate the applicability of his own theories to `àtonal'' music,
Russell at one point offers a ``Lydian Chromatic'' analysis of a classic dodeca-
phonic composition, choosing for his purposes ± rather tendentiously, perhaps ±
Berg's Violin Concerto. Here again one detects elements that may have had some
in¯uence on Takemitsu's compositional practice. Russell ± somewhat predictably
± relates the concerto to the ``B[ Lydian Chromatic Scale'', noting that the ®rst
``seven tones of the row . . . are the seven tones of the B[ Lydian Augmented
Scale'' (Russell 1959: xxxiii).5 This rather idiosyncratic reading of Berg's row in
terms of Russell's own scalar forms oddly parallels Takemitsu's practice of
actually creating twelve-note series whose internal construction is based on
elements deriving from his own scalar vocabulary. For example, the series
which appears intermittently in the 1961 orchestral work Music of Tree (®gure
27) consists of a seven-note octatonic collection (notes 1±7, mode II2) overlapping
with another seven-note octatonic collection (notes 6±12, mode II3) ± the pitches
D\ and B\ being common to both sets.
Finally, before concluding the subject of Russell's possible in¯uence on
Takemitsu, it is perhaps worth observing that the shadow of the former may
possibly be detected at one point in a notational convention of the latter. In the
``magic square'' which Takemitsu devised to generate the pitch materials of A
Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden, interval classes are notated as Arabic
numerals pre®xed with plus (major) or minus (minor) signs ± a device which
cannot fail to recall the manner in which Russell uses roman numerals pre®xed
with plus (sharpened) or minus (¯attened) signs to designate scale degrees in the
examples shown above.
Takemitsu contra Russell: Contrasts

But despite the many points of agreement between Takemitsu and Russell
desribed above, it is important to note that there are one or two areas in which
the ideas of the two composers diverge radically. Perhaps the most striking of
Figure 27
Series of Music of Tree.
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96 Peter Burt
these is a view expressed in Takemitsu's Yume to kazu [Dream and Number]

which is in diametric opposition to Russell's contention that the Lydian mode
best re¯ects the tonality of the major triad on its tonic, because a complete cycle of
seven perfect ®fths may be formed by using the latter as a starting point.
Takemitsu, by contrast, observes that
if we construct successive perfect ®fths above C, we get C, G, D, A, E, B, F]. . .. But if we arrange [these
sounds] stepwise, these pitches, with the exception of F], appear as the C major scale. . .. Thus, the
equal-tempered scale requires the substitution of F\. If the F] that appears in the cycle of perfect ®fths
is retained, the scale sounds unnatural. (Translation from Takemitsu 1995: 117)
Dramatic as this fundamental opposition to Russell's theories may appear,

however, in practical terms it is of little moment, since as we have seen it does not
prevent Takemitsu using the Lydian mode and other scalar forms recommended
by Russell for his own purposes. A much more noticeable difference between the
two composers is one that has emerged in passing during our discussion of the
actual practical uses to which modally derived forms are put in Takemitsu's
music. In Russell's case, the modes serve as the basis for improvised melodies
over chord changes: in other words, they are realized melodically, horizontally
(in the traditional, rather than Russell's, sense of the word). By contrast, while
Takemitsu occasionally fashions melodic lines from modal forms, as in the case
of the example from Green quoted above (®gure 9), in his music it is much more
common to ®nd modes used as source collections from which harmonic, vertical
forms (again, in the traditional sense) are derived, as in the case of the chords
underlying each melody note in that same example. The most common exception
to this general rule is to be found in Takemitsu's use of the octatonic scale. Unlike
the other scalar types used by Takemitsu, this is frequently used not simply as
the basis for individual chords, but for substantial sections of his music referring
more or less exclusively to one of its three transpositions ± in which case, of
course, both melody and harmony are octatonically derived.
However, while the original edition of the Concept, which is presumably what
Takemitsu read, related only the melodic dimension of jazz improvisation to
Lydian Chromatic theories ± analyzing its harmonic content, instead, in terms of
conventional chord categories ± in the 1964 appendix referred to above, Russell
mentions a ``second book now being prepared'' which will ``deal with the
formation of harmonic structures'' (Russell 1959: G). To my knowledge, this
book never actually appeared, but Russell here gives some hints as to the type of
thing it might have contained. In particular, he divides harmonic types into the
three categories shown below, each of which is also of frequent occurrence in
Takemitsu's music, types (i) and (ii) being especially typical of him:
(i) Modal harmonic structures

These Russell further subdivides into two types: modal chord structures ±
classi®able harmonic forms based on thirds, e.g. sevenths, ninths etc.; and
modal vertical structures, those deriving from a single mode, but which are not
third-based. In Takemitsu's music, the latter type ± typically taking the form of
closely spaced, non-functional ``clusters'' deriving from modal materials ± is of
more frequent occurrence.
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(ii) Poly-modal harmonic structures

In this type of harmonic formation, Russell explains, unrelated classi®ed chords
in the bass and treble are placed one above another. Such constructions are
similar to the chords which Takemitsu derives from the ``layering'' of two
relatively autonomous harmonic areas one above the other, the partitioning of
such chords often re¯ecting a pianistic division into ``left-hand'' and ``right-
hand'' areas, even in the case of works not actually written for the piano.
Admittedly in Takemitsu's case these constituent harmonic areas rarely take
the form of classi®able chordal types; but there are nevertheless exceptions, as in
the case of the chord from the third movement of Uninterrupted Rest (1959) shown
in ®gure 28, where an augmented triad sits above a diminished one.6
(iii) Chromatic harmonic structures

These are freely chromatic chords built up, Russell claims, from intervals of
fourths and augmented ®fths. Here Takemitsu's practice diverges a little from
Russell's theory, since while freely chromatic chords undoubtedly occur in
Takemitsu's music, they are obviously not as circumscribed in their choice of
intervallic content as Russell here appears to suggest they should be.
The Dorian Horizon ± A Likely Story

Having now examined both the extent to which the harmonic language of
Takemitsu is in sympathy with, and may even have been in¯uenced by, the
theories of George Russell, and the points on which the two composers' ideas
differ, we can proceed to apply these general speculations in a more speci®c
context, and see how Russell's theories might be re¯ected in the actual musical
materials of a particular Takemitsu work. For this purpose, attention will now be
turned to that score which ± as its title suggests ± of all Takemitsu's works is that
in which the debt to Russell's theories is most manifest: his 1966 composition for
seventeen solo strings The Dorian Horizon.
Commissioned by the Koussevitsky Foundation, and ®rst performed in 1966 at
the San Francisco ``Musica Viva'' under Aaron Copland, The Dorian Horizon is
really two works in one, for two ensembles in one. On the one hand, the outer
and inner sections of its basic ABA1 form offer radically different types of music.
Figure 28
Uninterrupted Rest III, bar 7. Copyright (1962) Editions Salabert, Paris.
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98 Peter Burt
That for the inner section, which partly derives from music Takemitsu provided
for the Hiroshi Teshigahara ®lm Suna no onna [Woman in the Dunes] two years
earlier, is expressive and highly chromatic, with much use of high clusters and
glissandi; by contrast, the outer sections of the work, which bear the indication
`Àlways calm'', consist for the largest part of very slow changes of modal
harmony, given a cold, clear quality by the instruction to play ``without
vibration'' and by various kinds of extended playing techniques. Moreover,
these two types of music are further distinguished by the use made of the
available instrumental resources in each. Takemitsu divides his seventeen solo
strings into two groups: a downstage ensemble of eight musicians called ``8
Harmonic Pitches'', and an upstage one, directed to be placed ``between as far as
possible'' [sic], called ``9 Echoes''. While the middle section makes intensive use
of both groups, in the opening section the role of the `ècho'' group is almost
entirely con®ned to a number of short anticipations of material from the ``B''
section (with the exception of bb. 61±64, where they sustain pitches from the
foreground group to produce chords), and in the ®nal section the echo group is
silent entirely.
It is in the outermost sections of the work, and in the music assigned to the
``harmonic pitches'', that the material most relevant to the subject of the present
discussion is to be found. It would appear to be this material to which Takemitsu
is referring when he observes in his programme note that the work `ìs based
upon the idea of constructing the twelve notes of the octave out of the diatonic
steps of the tonal Dorian mode, its augmentation (``Dorian Augment'') and
diminution (``Dorian Diminish''), as well as the whole-tone scale'' (quoted by
Akiyama 1980: 455). By now all these terms, and especially of course those in
brackets (which appear in English in the original), will have a familiar ring to the
reader. The analogy with George Russell's procedure is obvious: Takemitsu has
here fashioned his own ``Dorian Chromatic'' counterpart to Russell's ``Concept'',
using as his starting point the Dorian mode rather than the Lydian, and then
producing `àugmented'' and ``diminished'' forms whose pitches, super-added
to those of the parent scale, yield the total chromatic. In this, he may be taking up
a hint offered by Russell at one point (Russell 1959: 43) for tackling works written
in minor keys, which may employ either the Lydian Chromatic Scale residing on
their tonic, or on the note a minor third higher ± in the latter instance thus using a
family of scales whose most fundamental form is equivalent to a Dorian mode on
the tonic pitch.
In a manner that will be familiar to anyone who has looked at his theoretical
writings, however, Takemitsu's rather vague remarks here leave the matter of
how this initial concept was actually realized in musical terms shrouded in
mystery; as one recent commentator aptly puts it, `Ìt is not clear what sort of
mode and its `derivatives' Takemitsu actually combined'' (ChoÅki 2000: 13). And
while his observations in general, and their similarity to Russell's ideas, have
been duly noted by a number of writers, to my knowledge only one scholar to
date seems to have thought it necessary to penetrate this veil further, and ask
such very reasonable questions as what Takemitsu's ``Diminished'' and `Àug-
mented'' scales may actually consist of, and how they are used in the course of
this composition. The present study cannot claim to offer de®nitive answers to
such questions either, but will at least attempt to suggest some possible
explanations ± always with the proviso that, as ever with Takemitsu, whose
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own pronouncements on the matter remained vague and inscrutable, any such
attempts to explain his compositional method in the end almost always amount
to no more than `à likely story''. Other interpretations of Takemitsu's hints than
mine may therefore be equally valid, and the scholar brie¯y mentioned above as
providing an exception to the general reticence about the actual nature of
Takemitsu's ``Dorian Augmented'' and ``Diminished'' scales ± Luciana Galliano
(1998: 223±224, 1999: 523±524) ± actually offers a quite different explanation of
them to that which follows.
As suggested above, the ®rst question we must ask ourselves when embarking
on such an explanation is what Takemitsu actually means by the various
categories of scales he refers to in his programme note. Two of these, admittedly,
are unproblematic enough. The whole-tone scale ± Russell's `Àuxiliary Aug-
mented'' ± is familiar enough, and one of its uses in Takemitsu's work, at least,
fairly easy to pinpoint: the dramatic ten-note chord ®rst heard in bar 100, formed
by superimposing four notes of one whole-tone scale over all six notes of the
other, in a manner Russell might have described as ``poly-modal''. The reference
to the ``tonal Dorian mode'' is similarly unambiguous, suggesting the following
gamut of pitches, which, for reasons that will become apparent later, is here
shown with the pitch E[ as its ®rst degree (®gure 29).
What the `àugmented'' and ``diminished'' forms of such a scale might consist
of, however, is less certainly determined, and what follows by way of explana-
tion is therefore only tentatively offered. The rationale behind the construction of
Russell's own `àugmented'' and ``diminished'' scales would appear to be that
each alters one pitch of the fundamental ``Lydian Scale'' chromatically in order to
offer the possibility of constructing, respectively, augmented and diminished
chord categories on its ®rst degree. Analogously, therefore, one might suppose
that Takemitsu made similar chromatic adjustments to his fundamental ``Dorian
mode'' in order that it, too, might support such harmonic types on its ®rst step. A
``Dorian Diminished'' scale answering the necessary conditions is the more
readily produced of the two supplementary types Takemitsu mentions. It may
either be achieved enharmonically, simply by raising the fourth degree of the
Dorian mode ± which produces a mode commencing on the fourth degree of the
harmonic minor scale ± or more literally, by lowering the ®fth of the mode, which
Figure 29
Dorian Mode on E[.
Figure 30
Hypothetical ``Dorian Diminished Scale'' on E[.
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100 Peter Burt
yields the seven-note form shown in ®gure 30, actually the sixth mode of
Russell's Lydian Diminished Scale.
To construct a satisfactory ``Dorian Augmented'' scale on the same principles,
however ± that is, one that can accommodate an augmented triad on its ®rst
degree ± requires the chromatic alteration of at least two notes: the third of the
mode must be sharpened, and either the sixth ¯attened or the ®fth chromatically
raised. The ®rst of the latter possibilities generates mode III of Russell's Lydian
Augmented Scale; the second, a nonce form as shown in ®gure 31.
Having thus proposed these speculative answers to the question of the precise
nature of Takemitsu's modal resources, we must next ask ourselves: How does
the composer employ these scalar materials to generate the actual musical
surface of the outer sections in The Dorian Horizon? One answer to this question
is suggested by the work's very title, which implies among other things a concern
with the horizontal dimension of the music (in the conventional sense of the term,
rather than Russell's). Examination of the score in fact suggests at least two ways
in which underlying materials of ``Dorian'' origin are being projected in a
horizontal sense. In the ®rst instance, it would appear that the Dorian mode is
the governing principle behind a long-term melodic progression that emerges,
for the most part, from the uppermost pitches of the slow-moving harmonic
changes. As hinted above, the ``tonal centre'' of this pitch progression ± and
indeed of the work as a whole ± is E[/D]: not simply the ®nal pitch to be sounded
in the score, but a note that receives repeated emphasis at various points along
the way, for example in the form of the Klangfarbenmelodie on that pitch in bb.
Figure 31
Hypothetical ``Dorian Augmented Scale'' on E[.
Figure 32
The Dorian Horizon: melodic skeleton of bb. 1±14.
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20±27 and 36±41. This fact, taken in conjunction with Takemitsu's explicit
reference to the Dorian mode in his programme notes, suggests that the
``parent scale'' of the long-term progression should be an E[/D] Dorian mode
as shown in ®gure 29 ± an assumption which would appear to be vindicated by
the melodic skeleton of the work's ®rst fourteen bars (®gure 32), which exposes
all six other pitches of such a scale before eventually sounding the long-withheld
``tonic'' as ®nal.
The pitches of this basic melodic contour are not, of course, exclusively
con®ned to the ambit of this particular scale over the entire course of the
introductory section's 107 bars. Extraneous notes are introduced, beginning
with the dramatic E\ in bar 42, and for a spell indeed ± roughly between bb.
54 and 60 ± the basic scale referred to would appear not to be `È[ Dorian'' at all
but its equivalent a diminished third higher (a fact that will assume a certain
importance when we come to consider the work's harmony). Essentially, though,
the bulk of the melodic progression of this section adheres fairly loyally to the E[
Dorian mode of its parentage, and one might therefore describe it, using Russell's
terminology, as a reasonably `ìngoing horizontal'' type of melody with certain
``chromatically enhanced'' elements.
There would also, however, appear to be a second, and less obviously audible,
sense in which Takemitsu's ``Dorian'' modes have been used to generate
horizontal materials. The clue to this type of organization is afforded by an
unreferenced remark of Takemitsu's quoted by ChoÅki (2000: 12), in which the
composer reveals that `èach instrument is assigned to one of such modes and it
plays according to it. Put together they form a `cluster'.'' This suggests, ®rst, that
the array of pitches assigned to each of the eight instrumental soloists in the main
string body might be limited to a certain gamut; and, second, that the latter is
modally determined. Close examination of the ®rst section of the score certainly
reveals the ®rst of these conjectures to be justi®ed: not only is each instrument
assigned a limited collection of available pitches, but many of these pitches are
associated with particular forms of attack ± harmonics, pizzicato, col legno battuto,
etc. ± effectively turning such ``gamuts of pitches'' into ``gamuts of sounds'' like
those Cage had assigned to each of the individual string voices in his String
Quartet in Four Parts of 1949±1950. In the case of the double basses at least, the
selection of a speci®c ``sound gamut'' by Takemitsu appears to be actually partly
responsible for the ``pitch gamut'' chosen, since the insistence on natural
harmonics here severely circumscribes the range of notes Takemitsu is able to
call upon in the instruments' higher register.
Of the eight ``gamuts of sounds'' employed by Takemitsu ± one for each soloist
of the foreground ensemble ± two contain ten pitch-classes, and the remainder
eleven. As we have already observed, in his Concept Russell speaks of super-
imposing the three most basic scales of his theory ± Lydian, Lydian Diminished
Figure 33
Ten-note scale.
d:/1cmr/21-4/057.3d ± 14/2/3 ± 11:32 ± t&f/sh
102 Peter Burt
and Lydian Augmented ± to create what he describes as a ``nine-tone scale''.

Performing the same operation on Takemitsu's own ``Dorian'' equivalents (i.e.
the modes shown in ®gures 29±31) produces a ten-note form, lacking two pitches
a whole-tone apart, as shown in ®gure 33.
The fact that both ten-note ``gamut'' collections used by Takemitsu map onto
transpositions of ®gure 33 suggests that their pitch materials may indeed derive
from such a process, and may represent con¯ations of Dorian, Augmented and
Diminished forms. The collection allocated to the second viola, for instance,
might be considered a summation of the pitches of Takemitsu's three basic
Dorian scales based on A[/G] (®gure 34).
Certainly there is an undeniably ``scalar'' feel to the material, with its modal
tetrachords, when presented in the form shown here, and this is a quality shared
by the eleven-note collections allocated to the other instruments. It is thus
tempting to think of these as deriving from the above superimposition of
modal forms ``chromatically enhanced'' by the addition of one foreign pitch ±
to parse the materials allocated to the ®rst violin, for instance, as a ``ten-note
scale'' derived from F] Dorian with an added F\ (®gure 35). The fact, already
alluded to in passing, that part of the score seems to revolve around an F] tonal
centre, and that the collections allocated to three of the other instruments may
also be analysed as projections of some sort of ``F] Dorian Chromatic'', lends a
certain support to this view.
The means employed by Takemitsu to build up his textures from these
``gamuts'' of instrument-speci®c sonorities would appear to resemble a kind of
process to which he referred many years later in his Dream and Number, when he
revealed that
Figure 34
The Dorian Horizon: pitch materials of second viola, bb. 1±99.
Figure 35
The Dorian Horizon: pitch materials of ®rst violin, bb. 1±99.
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I employ for example the Dorian mode as a starting point, derive various sub-species from it, and then
fashion my basic sound materials from the heterogeneous kinds of effects of light and shade that
result as if by collision between them. (Takemitsu 1987: 34)
Despite the suggestion of a certain arbitrary randomness in the vertical

combinations that result from such ``collisions'', however, there is nevertheless
a certain amount of evidence that the vertical aspect of the music may also be
modally determined, and in ways which do not necessarily correspond to the
horizontal modal basis of the individual string voices. For example, the sustained
pitches of the ®rst seven bars of ®gure 32, most of which are a whole bar or longer
in duration, are criss-crossed by a series of short vertical events mostly placed on
the ®rst beat of the bar: strange mixtures of harmonics, pizzicati and pizzicato
harmonics, whose effect has been compared (by Akiyama 1980: 457) to that of a
kakko (a percussion instrument used in traditional gagaku music) punctuating the
sustained harmonies of the shoÅ (a ``mouth organ'' also used in that genre). This
coincidence of odd mixtures of string timbres (obviously deriving `às if by
collision'' from the ®xed repertories of sounds allocated to each instrument) with
slow changes of harmony, together with the absence of vibrato and the modal
basis of the music, also strongly recall the actual sound world of the Cage Quartet
already suggested as a possible constructional model; while the regularity of the
initial harmonic pulse ± one event par bar ± may perhaps at the same time impart
to these verticals something of the character of ``chord changes'' in a jazz
composition. Figure 36 illustrates the harmonies of these ®rst seven bars.
The ®rst of these chords is especially interesting. It contains the same pitches,
presented in an almost identical voicing, as the opening harmony of a post-war
composition very familiar to Japanese audiences, if rather less well-known in the
West: the Nehan koÅkyoÅkyoku [Nirvana Symphony] (1958) of ToshiroÅ Mayuzumi
(1929±1997). Takemitsu certainly knew this work, since a recording of it had
appeared on the same LP record as his own Textures (1964) the year before The
Dorian Horizon, and indeed he mentions it by name at one point in one of his
essays (Takemitsu 1971: 60).7 But whereas Mayuzumi claimed to have derived
this haunting sonority from the overtone series of a Buddhist temple bell,
Takemitsu seems to have arrived at almost the same sound via a different
route. And while the precise nature of that route cannot be ascertained with
certainty, the following seems a possible explanation: the pitches of this chord are
a subset of a ``Dorian Diminished'' scale on the tonic pitch of E[ like that shown
in ®gure 30, but one which contains both the diminished and perfect ®fth above
Figure 36
The Dorian Horizon: harmonies of bb. 1±7.
# 1967 by Onagaku no Tomo Sha Corp. Used by permission.
d:/1cmr/21-4/057.3d ± 14/2/3 ± 11:32 ± t&f/sh
104 Peter Burt
the tonic ± in other words, a scale which superimposes the ``Dorian Diminished''
scale on the ``Dorian Mode'' itself. Similarly, the second, third and sixth chords
could be considered as subsets of that scale which arises when E[ ``Dorian
Augmented'' (®gure 31) is superimposed upon plain E[ ``Dorian'', while the
three- and two-note forms found in bb. 4 and 5 come from the unadorned E[
Dorian mode itself. Put another way, all of the ®rst ®ve chords of the work derive
from that collection which results from the superimposition of E[ ``Dorian'',
``Dorian Diminished'' and `Àugmented'' forms upon one another, and which ±
as we have already shown in ®gure 33 ± forms a ten-tone collection, analogous to
the ``nine-note scale'' that arises from the performance of a corresponding
operation within Russell's Lydian system.
If at this point my hypothetical explanation is beginning to strike the reader as
actually something of an `ùnlikely story'', it may perhaps be appropriate to draw
attention to one or two features of Takemitsu's writing elsewhere in the score
which would appear to offer a certain amount of support for the above
suggestions. For example, chords in which a collection deriving from the basic
E[ Dorian mode is underpinned by one or more of the ``foreign'' pitches
introduced by the ``Diminished'' and `Àugmented'' forms of the scale ± A\, G\
or B\ ± are something of a characteristic feature of this composition. The ®rst and
third harmonies in ®gure 36 are of this type, and there are further instances in bb.
12±13, 28, 52, 53, 70, 89, 92, 94 and 99. Moreover, the above-suggested derivation
of the opening bars from the combined pitches of various scales on E[ receives a
certain corroboration from the passage beginning at bar 54, which (as already
observed) is centred on a local tonic of F], and ®nally settles on an unaccompan-
ied statement of that pitch in bb. 59±60. Here the choice of the harmonic materials
would appear to be determined by a scale that results from the combination of
two modes based on F] rather than E[: the ``Dorian'' and ``Dorian Augmented''
forms which, together, yield a nine-note scale as shown in ®gure 37. All the
pitches between bb. 54 and 60 are members of this nine-note set.
Further evidence that at least some vertical collections in the work are modally
determined is afforded by the fact that harmonies of obvious modal derivation
reappear during the course of the work, acquiring the status of ``referential''
events in a manner that is typical of Takemitsu. Three of the chords of the
opening bars quoted in ®gure 36 recur again in this fashion; ®gure 38 lists the
appearances of both the original harmonic types and forms related to them. The
modal origin of these harmonies ± already discussed above ± is both readily
apparent on paper and clearly audible to the listener. Many of these chords
indeed, with their widely spaced, unorthodox and dissonant voicings, recall not
only the string quartet of Cage already referred to, but also ± and highly
unusually for Takemitsu ± the neo-classical writing of Stravinsky, a composer
for whose music Takemitsu did not particularly care, despite the boost the
Russian composer had given his career in the 1950s. The cadential ®gure quoted
Figure 37
Superimposition of ``Dorian Mode'' and ``Dorian Augmented Scale'' on F].
d:/1cmr/21-4/057.3d ± 14/2/3 ± 11:33 ± t&f/sh
Figure 38
Referential harmonic types, The Dorian Horizon.
in ®gure 39, for example ± which, incidentally, con®rms the tonic pitch of E[, and
whose constituent harmonies all derive from referential types ± sounds as if it
might have been lifted straight from the Symphony of Psalms; one could almost
imagine chanting the word Dominum to its three chords.
In contrast to the pale, ascetic sound of these open, widely spaced chords
played without vibrato by the ``harmonic pitches'', the few interjections of ``B''
material by the ``nine echoes'' in this opening section offer glimpses of a radically
different sound world. The nine upstage strings play with mutes and vibrato,
d:/1cmr/21-4/057.3d ± 14/2/3 ± 11:33 ± t&f/sh
106 Peter Burt
Figure 39
The Dorian Horizon, bb. 69±70. # 1967 by Onagaku no Toma Sha Corp. Used by permission.
and their warmly expressive melodic and harmonic material is strikingly

different from that given to the foreground ensemble. And it is here, ®nally,
that the other scale type mentioned by Takemitsu in his programme notes on the
piece makes its most unequivocal appearances. In addition to types deriving
from the octatonic collection, many of the harmonies given to this background
ensemble have obvious origins in materials deriving from the two transpositions
of the whole-tone scale. Especially typical are forms in which collections of
pitches each deriving from a different transposition of the scale are super-
imposed one above the other. This is a tendency that reaches its climax in bar
100 of the work, when the foreground strings step out of character to play a full
ten-note harmony sul ponticello, with vibrato and at maximum dynamic level. The
harmony, which as already observed consists of four notes of one whole-tone
scale superimposed upon all six of the other, is clearly also in the character of the
music given so far to the subsidiary ensemble; and the appropriation of such a
harmonic device by the main string group here is a sign that the opening section
of The Dorian Horizon is coming to an end, and a middle section of radically
different character about to begin.
Conclusions
The Dorian Horizon might at ®rst sight seem a one-off, since never again were
Takemitsu's commentaries on individual works to reveal such a thorough
engagement with Russell's theories as found in the ``Dorian chromaticism''
which he explored in this particular work. But this does not mean, of course,
that Takemitsu ceased to be interested in Russell's ideas in a more general sense;
indeed, the passage from Dream and Number already quoted suggests that he may
even have continued to explore further his own ``Dorian'' reinterpretation of
them. The type of procedure Takemitsu describes in this quote is in fact
suggestive not only of the horizontal construction of The Dorian Horizon, but
also of the manner in which verticals are modally determined in the passage from
Green subjected to analysis above (®gure 9); and although that analysis followed
Russell's precedent in relating the various ``sub-species'' of modes to a ``Lydian''
origin, it might be an interesting experiment to try to repeat the analysis using the
``Dorian'' starting point suggested by Takemitsu's hints (e.g. by describing the
®rst chord as a subset of one possible version of the ``Dorian Augmented'' mode
beginning on C] ). In addition to such speci®c applications of Russell's theories as
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these, however, in a broader sense Russell's concept of ``pantonality'' remained

one with which Takemitsu was to become ever more openly sympathetic as the
years passed: a tendency which culminated in the ®nal immersion of his music in
a ``sea of tonality'', beginning in the late 1970s, and reaching its consummation in
the unashamedly tonal works of his ®nal years.
Would all of this have happened in any case, regardless of whether Takemitsu
had been handed a copy of the Lydian Chromatic Concept or not? The answer to
this question seems to be both yes and no. If one considers the speci®c technical
device of deriving harmony from modal forms, whether horizontally or vertically
realized, and with or without the addition of extraneous pitches, then it is clear
that this was a practice which Takemitsu had already established before his
exposure to Russell's theories, and ± Dorian Horizon apart ± he seems to have
gained little from them in this respect other than (possibly) one or two additions
to his modal vocabulary, and a general vindication of what he was already doing.
If, on the other hand, one considers Russell's more general aesthetic ideas about
``pantonality'' and the Lydian Chromatic Scale, then one can admit the possibility
that such concepts may have had a more far-reaching impact on the Japanese
composer. When Takemitsu read The Lydian Chromatic Concept in 1961, his most
recent music had re¯ected the preoccupations of the Western avant-garde ±
Webernian pointillisme, serialism, musique concreÁte ± and for the next few years he
was to continue experimenting with such devices, adding to them techniques
from the American experimental school such as graphic notation to produce
scores very much imbued with the spirit of their time. The speci®c modal
techniques of The Dorian Horizon, however, and the more general modal
usages which one ®nds in Takemitsu's work even in this most ``modernist''
phase of his career ± such as the passage from Green already referred to ± already
suggest an alternative direction in Takemitsu's development, a kind of ``proto-
postmodernism'' waiting for its time to come in the succeeding decade. It is
impossible to determine how large a role the in¯uence of Russell might have
played in setting Takemitsu on this path, or at least in legitimizing his pursuit of
it.
But if Russell was indeed ± even if only partially ± responsible for this gradual
stylistic and aesthetic conversion that characterized Takemitsu's later years, then
ironically the more theoretical part of his speculations ± and, in particular, his
implied critical attitude towards Western music theory ± may have borne more
fruitful results at one remove than in the case of their originator. Russell had
attempted single-handedly to set his Lydian Chromatic theories in opposition to
the whole history of polyphonic composition in the West, and reaped as his
reward only the scepticism of critics for the naõÈve bravado of such an enterprise.
Takemitsu's aims were more modest: his ``Dorian Chromaticism'' did not
presume to supplant the hegemony of the whole Western tradition, but rather
to offer a ``pantonalism'' which was intended as a ``humble protest against
inorganic serialism'' (Akiyama 1980: 455). In this, his less ambitiously subversive
project seems ultimately to have proved the more successful of the two. The
Western major±minor system against which Russell Quixotically tilted remains
as ®rm as ever; but the `ìnorganic serialism'' that seemed so unassailably the
dominant idiom of the epoch when Takemitsu wrote The Dorian Horizon has
indeed been relegated to the status of those wrong turnings and cul-de-sacs in
which the history of Western composition in the twentieth century so plentifully
d:/1cmr/21-4/057.3d ± 14/2/3 ± 11:33 ± t&f/sh
108 Peter Burt
abounds. Perhaps, therefore, it is for the fact that Takemitsu was thus ®nally
vindicated in his ``humble protest'' ± rather than for any speci®c technical
procedures ± that, ultimately, we must be grateful for George Russell and his
Lydian Chromatic theories, and the unlikely turn of fate which originally placed
them in the Japanese composer's hands.
References
Akiyama, Kuniharu (1978±1979) Nihon no sakkyokukatachi [Japanese Composers]. Tokyo: Ongaku no
Tomo Sha.
Akiyama, Kuniharu (1980) `Àrticle on The Dorian Horizon''. In Saishin meikyoku kaisetsu zenshuÅ, vol. 13,
pp. 454±456. Tokyo: Ongaku no Tomo Sha.
ChoÅki, Seiji (2000) The Dorian Horizon, preface to miniature score, trans. Akiko Tsukamoto. Tokyo:
Ongaku no Tomo Sha.
Dauer, Alfons Michael (1982) ``Das Lydisch-Chromatische Tonsystem von George Russell und seine
Anwendung''. Jazzforschung (Jazz Research) 14, 61±132.
Forte, Allen (1973) The Structure of Atonal Music. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Galliano, Luciana (1998) YoÅgaku: Percorsi della musica giapponese nel Novecento. Venice: Cafoscarina.
Galliano, Luciana (1999) ``Takemitsu ToÅru: il primo periodo creativo (1950±70)''. Nuova Rivista
Musicale Italiana 33(4), 523±524.
Grif®ths, Paul (1985) Olivier Messiaen and the Music of Time. London: Faber and Faber.
Hendler, Maximilian (1984) ``Gedanken zum `Lydischen Konzept' von George Russell''. Jazzforschung
(Jazz Research) 16, 163±171.
Jeanquartier, AndreÂ (1984) ``Kritische Anmerkungen zum `Lydian Chromatic Concept'; ein Vergleich
zwischen George Russells Konzept und dem Dur-Moll-System''. Jazzforschung (Jazz Research) 16,
9±41.
Koozin, Timothy (1988) ``The Solo Piano Works of ToÅru Takemitsu: a linear/set-theoretical analysis''.
Ph.D. thesis, University of Cincinnati, USA.
Koozin, Timothy (1991) `Òctatonicism in recent solo piano works of ToÅru Takemitsu''. Perspectives of
New Music 29(1), 124±140.
Koozin, Timothy (1993) ``Spiritual-temporal imagery in the music of Olivier Messiaen and ToÅru
Takemitsu''. Contemporary Music Review 7, 185±202.
Koozin, Timothy (2002) ``Traversing distances: Pitch organization, gesture and imagery in the late
works of ToÅru Takemitsu''. Contemporary Music Review 21(4), 17±34.
Messiaen, Olivier (1954) Waga ongaku gohoÅ, trans. Kishio Hirao. Tokyo: KyoÅiku Shuppan Kabushiki
Gaisha.
Miyamoto, KenjiroÅ (1996) Klang im Osten, Klang im Westen: der Komponist ToÅru Takemitsu und die
Rezeption europaÈischer Musik in Japan. SaarbruÈcken: Pfau.
ReÂti, Rudolph (1958) Polytonality, Pantonality, Atonality. London: Rockliff.
Russell, George (1959) The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization for Improvisation. New York:
Concept Publishing Co.
Stravinsky, Igor (1970) Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Tachibana, Takashi (1994) ``Takemitsu ToÅru: ongaku soÅzoÅ e no tabi'' [ToÅru Takemitsu: the journey
towards musical creation]. Bungakukai, July.
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ShinchoÅsha.
Takemitsu, ToÅru (1985) ``Futatabi zen-ei no kigai de'' [Once again with avant-garde spirit]. Ongaku
Geijutsu 5, 70.
Takemitsu, ToÅru (1987) Yume to kazu [Dream and Number]. Tokyo: Libroport.
Takemitsu, ToÅru (1995) Confronting Silence: Selected Writings, trans. and ed. Yoshiko Kakudo and
Glenn Glasow. Berkeley, CA: Fallen Leaf Press.
Takemitsu, ToÅru (1996) Toki no entei [Time's Gardener]. Tokyo: ShinchoÅsha.
Yamashita, Kunihiko (2000) YokujoÅ no kazu toshite no buruÅ noÅto, aruiwa ninshiki no shijoÅ no hoÅhoÅ toshite no
jazu [Blue notes as the arithmetic of desire, or jazz as the method of the supremacy of under-
standing]. In Takemitsu ToÅru: oto no kawa no yukue [ToÅru Takemitsu: traces of the stream of sound],
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d:/1cmr/21-4/057.3d ± 14/2/3 ± 11:33 ± t&f/sh
Notes
1. Or perhaps even earlier still ± according to the of®cial George Russell website (http://www.geor-
gerussell.com) the book was ®rst published in 1953.
2. See in particular various works by Timothy Koozin (1988, 1991, 1993, 2002).
3. Jeanquartier (1984) here refers to the collection as the ``whole-tone scale with natural seventh''.
4. The composer's programme note, in Ongaku Geijutsu, 1967, 25(3), quoted by Akiyama (1978±1979),
p. 258.
5. This scale is of course identical with G melodic minor.
6. At the same time, this construction places the whole bar within the ambit of a single mode, ``G
Lydian Diminished''.
7. For a translation, see Takemitsu (1995: 22).
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Takemitsu and Russell

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Contemporary Music Review, 2002, Vol. 21, No. 4, 73±109

Takemitsu and the Lydian Chromatic Concept

folk group visiting Japan, approached Takemitsu to request some arrangements

Outline of George Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept

Takemitsu and George Russell 75

Russell calls it the ``Auxiliary Diminished Scale'' (®gure 4). Similarly, an

Takemitsu and George Russell 77

Takemitsu and George Russell 79

Takemitsu and Russell: Comparisons

overemphasizing these'' (Takemitsu 1995: 106), since ``theorists tend to think of

Takemitsu's modal resources

Takemitsu and George Russell 81

Furthermore, in addition to vertical superimpositions of the pitches of a

Takemitsu and George Russell 83

Heptatonic Of the seven-note scalar collections employed by Takemitsu, the most

of our present discussion ± verticalizes all pitches of a ``D Lydian'' mode.

Takemitsu and George Russell 85

Takemitsu and George Russell 87

Takemitsu and George Russell 89

composition in Japan, and to the emergence of the ``Nationalist'' school in

Takemitsu and George Russell 91

again, Allen Forte's terminology ± as the ``7±33'' collection. Chord ``A'' in

Takemitsu and George Russell 93

It may also be possible to consider certain aspects of Takemitsu's modal

Chord type Derivation

(1) Inversion of [0,1,3,5,7,9] ``Lydian Augmented'' on A

² Or ``Auxiliary diminished blues'' on G], B, D or F.

Takemitsu and George Russell 95

Takemitsu contra Russell: Contrasts

these is a view expressed in Takemitsu's Yume to kazu [Dream and Number]

Dramatic as this fundamental opposition to Russell's theories may appear,

(i) Modal harmonic structures

Takemitsu and George Russell 97

(ii) Poly-modal harmonic structures

(iii) Chromatic harmonic structures

The Dorian Horizon ± A Likely Story

Takemitsu and George Russell 99

100 Peter Burt

Takemitsu and George Russell 101

102 Peter Burt

and Lydian Augmented ± to create what he describes as a ``nine-tone scale''.

Takemitsu and George Russell 103

Despite the suggestion of a certain arbitrary randomness in the vertical

104 Peter Burt

Takemitsu and George Russell 105

106 Peter Burt

and their warmly expressive melodic and harmonic material is strikingly

Takemitsu and George Russell 107

these, however, in a broader sense Russell's concept of ``pantonality'' remained

108 Peter Burt

Takemitsu and George Russell 109

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