Toru Takemitsu ： Asterism

Toru Takemitsu’s Asterism is a work in which the piano and orchestra intersect while maintaining a certain distance from one another, creating a distinctive sense of time through sharply struck sounds, delicate resonance, and changes in density. The piano is not only brought forward as a brilliant solo instrument, but is also treated as a sound that draws out the colors of the orchestra. The changing sonorities from one passage to the next, and the moments when tension rises out of silence, are among the work’s highlights. In performance, it is important to shape the duration and decay of each sound carefully, observe the timing of the rests, avoid forcing the forte passages, and preserve the direction of each note and a transparent balance.