The Creative Quest into Temple Bell Sonorities: Works of Musique Concrète by Toshiro Mayuzumi
Yoshihiko Shimizu · Contemporary Music Review · 2018
Toshiro Mayuzumi (1929–1997) is acknowledged as an important composer in Japan, being a pioneer in the history of Japan’s electroacoustic music, and having created Japan’s earliest works of musique concrète and electronic music. Mayuzumi started composing works based on the concept of Japan’s traditional ‘sound culture’ in the late 1950s. At around the time when he started to hold a deep interest in Japanese ‘sound culture’, he was actively pursuing the acoustic analysis of the sound of Buddhist temple bells, as well as the experimental synthesis of electronic sounds similar to the sound of temple bells. Based on this experience, Mayuzumi created works of musique concrète using the sound of temple bells as raw material. In this study, we shall focus on Mayuzumi’s works of musique concrète that use temple bell sounds as material, and discuss Mayuzumi’s strong interest in Japan’s traditional ‘sound culture’, as well as its relationship with the musical concept ‘musique concrète’ which inherently has its origin in the Western world.