Written in 1981, "Toward the Sea II" is a version of the original chamber duo "Toward the Sea" for alto flute and guitar. The additional strings are not merely arrangements of the previous instrumental parts but are new inner voices that expand the original harmonies and gestures. The strings employ many coloristic effects which include the techniques of sul ponticello (bowing near the bridge), sul tasto (bowing over the fingerboard), con sordino (with mute), fluttering tremolos, and the use of natural and artificial harmonics.

This work of 14 minutes duration unfolds in three movements all associated with mysteries and tales of the water world. The first movement is entitled "The Night" and opens with mysterious transitions (a kind of audio morphing, or timbre modulation) between hollow tones to normal tones on the flute, night calls underscored with muted strings and rolling figures on the harp. Takemitsu employs a wide variety of special ways of playing the flute, including alternative fingerings, many varieties of vibrato, flutter-tongue, trills and combinations of these techniques. "The Night" is richly harmonic with variations on impressionist chords. Like other Takemitsu works of his later period, there are large arcing gestures separated by silent grand pauses - dream visions arising from the profound blackness of the night.

The second movement is "Moby Dick". The compositional approach is a kind of high abstraction of the traditional triplet-meter lilt given to sailing music (the boat over the waves, or a sailor's jig without of course imitating the actual dance, and so on) combined with floating arpeggios on complex chords and fluttering tremolos and high whistling harmonics of the winds. A haunting call and echo on the flute (in whole tone scale) is varied throughout this movement, including a brief yet spectacular cadenza that gradually dies away at the end.

In the third and last movement, entitled "Cape Cod", simple sighing figures in triplet meter and duple meter develop into marvelously rich impressionist harmonies and arpeggiated motions that recreate the waves of the sea. A mysterious section with sustained string overtones, a cyclically repeated "minimalist" figure on the harp, and slowly developing flute variations on the perfect fourth interval, first heard at the movement's opening, makes a stunning, suspended effect.

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