Tadaaki Otaka - Takemitsu: How Slow the Wind (2001)

It is rare to find a disc as creatively programmed as this BIS release. Enhanced by lovely performances, played with great devotion to the memory of the recently-deceased Japanese master, the repertoire was chosen by conductor Tadaaki Otaka and producer Robert Suff, who organized it not only in the most effective succesion, but in a manner that illustrates the works' individual meaning and illuminates Takemitsu's career.

All but one of the compositions are from Takemitsu's late period. The other, the Requiem for Strings, is one of the earliest works to win him fame. Fantasma/Cantos II, for trombone and orchestra, is among the last Takemitsu compositions. Both it and the Requiem provide considerably more forward harmonic motion than the other four works, which are in Takemitsu's typical "Japanese garden" meditative style, a kind of revival of French impressionism using harmonies that are more like Messiaen's than Debussy's.

Christian Lindberg is well known to fans of the BIS label as one of the greatest masters of the trombone, seemingly undaunted by any challenge. He also is a musician of wide interests who has recorded all sorts of music for that instrument. Although his part in Fantasma/Cantos II no doubt is quite difficult, it is not written to make a virtuoso effect, and Lindberg shows that the loudest instrument in the orchestra is capable of unexpectedly subtle, gentle singing. And when Takemitsu permits loud sounds, Lindberg stays within the composer's undemonstrative aesthetic.