Takemitsu, Toru. (1930 - 1996)

"Toru Takemitsu" - Signed LP Record to an important Chemist.

Boldly signed LP cover of this 1980 recording by Tashi and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Seiji Ozawa, featuring Quatrain and A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden. Japanese issued Deutsche Grammophon MG 1272. Signed and inscribed in blue ink on the back cover "Dr. Bernhard Witkop / with Admiration / November 19, 1980 / Toru Takemitsu." Cover in fine condition,LP untested but in apparently fine condition. 

The inscription is to the  German-born American organic chemist Bernhard Witkop (1917 - 2010) who worked for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for 37 years and who helped pioneer the NIH Visiting Fellow Program. Among other foreign scientists, he began attracting visiting researchers to the program from Japan as early as 1955. He traveled frequently to Japan, where he gave talks in classical Japanese and in 1975, Witkop received the Order of the Sacred Treasure, bestowed by the Emperor of Japan.

“He brought in the first visiting fellow from Japan at a time when we were still in the shadow of World War II,” said Dr. Kenneth Jacobson, Chief of the NIDDK Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry. “He broke the ice.”

Signed material of the important Japanese composer, a master of orchestral timbres, is uncommon.

(8399)


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Classical Music