The situation described so far can be transposed onto larger and more sophisticated works such as Boulez’s Improvisation sur Mallarmé I & II, or Stockhausen’s Kreuzspiel²⁰

. In such works, the integration of non-Western percussions reflects the necessity of an extended palette of timbres and a refined perception of timbral-rhythmic combinations, rather than idealised efforts to force non-Western connotations into Western frameworks of musical logic, as Paul Griffiths seems to suggest.²¹ Indeed, during the process of composition purely timbral preoccupations are no less important than any conceptual aspect, as the mentioned works clearly show. In both of Boulez’s works, for example, the extended palette of timbres provides an additional colour to the text, thus emphasising its literary content and primary contextual importance. Similarly in Kreuzspiel, the percussions ‘represent first of all a relatively unpitched complementary sound-world to that of the piano and woodwinds’ (Maconie, 1990:21) being employed as purely rhythmic forces, in movements I & III, and as a timbral enrichment, in movement II, of the discourse shaped by the piano and the woodwinds.

But what if instruments were approached as signifying objects indicating precise cultural connotations and representing the spirit of the tradition in which they are rooted?²²

I mentioned earlier how Toru Takemitsu managed to merge Eastern sensitivity and Western logistics of form and instrumental forces in some of his works. In November Steps and Autumn, written respectively in 1967 and 1973, two Japanese instruments, the biwa and the shakuhachi, are included in a Western orchestra in a setting which can be clearly defined as a double concerto. According to Yoshikazu Iwamoto, Takemitsu’s strategy for November Steps was ‘to set the diverse and varied land of sound embodied in the biwa and shakuhachi in sharp contrast to the rich texture of the orchestra, not to attempt to blend the Japanese traditional instruments with the orchestra in a seemingly natural manner’ (Iwamoto, 1994:8).

Takemitsu’s initial hesitation in writing this music was due on the one hand to the awareness of the Western cultural stereotype about traditional Japanese music as being essentially motionless, and on the other hand to the apprehension that such an instrumental combination would have been largely considered as a circumstance of pure exoticism. The dichotomy between the Western orchestra (and its historical genre connotations of symphony, concerto and symphonic poem) and the two solo instruments is however not the only one. In fact, the two Japanese instruments themselves are rooted in two different traditions and Takemitsu must have been well aware of this: the biwa is an ancient Japanese lute²³

related to To-gaku (T’ang music) from China, and later linked to the Samurai school and its somewhat rigid customs; the shakuhachi, although was part of the gagaku music²⁴ in the 9th century, is a rather popular instrument linked to honkyoku²⁵ , a genre initiated