Takemitsu said of Sacrifice: "[It] is not written for any particular religious observance, but...in the sound world of my own imagining, it is dedicated to the one God. I have called the movements Chant because I believe that the form of my music will be intensified by the form of prayer...I wanted to depict stillness, deep silence." These characteristics of stillness and silence are rightly associated with Takemitsu's music, but here, as much of his music before the '70s, it is difficult to hear it in those terms. The idiom, derived from Le Marteau Sans Maitre, seems an unlikely one for the evocation of religious feeling.

Sacrifice is neatly divided into two movements : "chant I" and "chant II." "Chant I" begins with the lute, which, with the hard-edged, projective playing Takemitsu demands, sounds merely like muted, slack-stringed guitar. His choice of lute over conventional guitar seems unjustified. The antique cymbals, which have a high, sustained resonation like thin crotales, are used mainly to adorn the vibraphone part. Throughout the piece, the flute's main function is to play long notes that seem to emerge out of the quick, jagged statements of the lute and/or vibraphones. The other instruments usually even out as the flute note rises, as if in response, so the music constantly undergoes an audible turning over from its pointillistic frenzy to long-note stillness.

"Chant II" starts with a spare duet for lute and flute. The background is thus empty of resonance and the sense of silence behind sound is deepened for a moment, hinting for the first time at what Takemitsu said he was aiming for. Soon the percussion returns however, and everything is the same as before. The main weakness of this music is that it's so light (there's no bass whatsoever) and destabilized, tonally and rhythmically, that nothing in it is especially evocative, nor differentiates itself from the basic texture. The effect is one of unappealing sameness, despite the music's constantly varied surface.

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