This dissertation explores and analyzes Toru Takemitsu’s seminal musical composition, “From me flows what you call Time.” As one of the last six orchestral works composed before Takemitsu’s untimely death in 1996, this epic work (commissioned for the centennial celebration of Carnegie Hall) takes the listener on a voyage beginning with a shakuhachi-like introduction played by the flute, through orchestral tuttis of sweeping beauty and percussion cadenzas of spiraling intensity. The dissertation will examine the composer’s debts to the sound worlds of Debussy and Messiaen, both of whom Takemitsu regarded as spiritual teachers. The soundscapes--tonal, modal, and atonal – ultimately depict the legend of the Tibetan Wind Horse.

The four sections to be discussed illustrate Takemitsu’s reliance on the technique of “color variation” to generate continuity without recourse to a preexistent formal design. Color variation, in its simplest form, is the technique of restating ideas with an emphasis on changes in instrumental timbre while nonetheless encompassing more traditional kinds of development as well. Takemitsu further evolves a formal plan for the piece by transposing the central melodic idea methodically over its course, introducing percussion cadenzas strategically, and leaving some of the work’s compositional parameters to the performers themselves. The result is a work steeped in both Eastern and Western influences, and one which makes use of the rich heritage of each culture.