Toru Takemitsu was the epitome of the supra­nationalist composer: born and based mainly in Japan‚ yet reaching out towards the West in ways he made musically positive and absorbing over many years. This CD therefore stands at a tangent to this achievement‚ since it contains only those works‚ or parts of works‚ in which no Western instruments are used. In an Autumn Garden was written for gagaku (court music) orchestra: rather confusingly (it certainly confuses DG’s annotator) the title applies both to this 16­minute movement from 1973‚ and to the 50­minute‚ six­movement work which Takemitsu built around it‚ and completed in 1979. The atmosphere is appropriately ritualistic (much repetition) and‚ in the Western sense‚ ‘purposeless’‚ although there is a build­up to something like a climax at around the two­thirds point. Similar effects‚ and a similar repertory of musical gestures‚ appear in the four other works‚ which include extracts from two compositions whose complete versions involve Western instruments – Autumn and November Steps. The virtuosity of Kinshi Tsuruta‚ playing the lute­like biwa‚ and Katsuya Yokoyama‚ on the flute­like shakuhachi‚ extends way beyond mere dexterity. The sounds are astonishingly varied and refined‚ and the remastered 1970s recordings are as impressive. Nevertheless‚ I have doubts about the purely compositional worth of this aspect of Takemitsu’s work‚ and even greater doubts about the value of extracting cadenza­like sections from their context in compositions whose whole point is the interaction between East and West. A complete recording of In an Autumn Garden would have been a better idea‚ I think.