Toru Takemitsu Quotes & Sayings

I always want to write erotic music ... Not only about the love between men and women, but in a much more universal sense - about the sensuality of the mechanism of the universe ... about life. — Toru Takemitsu

Composition gives proper meaning to the natural streams of sound that penetrate the world. — Toru Takemitsu

My teachers are Duke Ellington and nature. — Toru Takemitsu

Music is a form of prayer. — Toru Takemitsu

I am a gardener of infinite time. — Toru Takemitsu

I probably belong to a type of composer of songs who keeps thinking about melody ... I am old fashioned. — Toru Takemitsu

Many contemporary composers have been building walls of sounds following their own clever devices. But then, who lives inside those rooms? — Toru Takemitsu

Music should be able to invoke the natural emotions in all human beings. Music is not notes fixed on apiece of paper. — Toru Takemitsu

By admitting a new perception of space and giving it an active sense, is it not possible to discover a new unexpected, unexplored world? — Toru Takemitsu

Although I am basically self taught, I consider Debussy my teacher - the most important elements are colour, light and shadow. — Toru Takemitsu

The art music of the West has developed through out its history by means of individual geniuses, and out of the soil supporting them; non-Western musicians were born, and grew like the grasses of the field. — Toru Takemitsu