infotext:
From the sound of silence Yonejirô Noguchi (1875–1947), who wrote both Japanese and English poetry and also worked as an essayist as a mediator between cultures, formulated in 1914: »Japanese poetry, at least the old Japanese, differs from Western poetry in the same way as the sound of the distinguishes silence from the sound of a voice... On the basis of Japanese poetry there are no explanations... To anyone who cannot decipher from them (poems) what not is said, they remain closed«. The unspoken is therefore just as important as what is spoken, the understanding of which in the Japanese language must first be developed in a cunning combination of a sheer infinite potential of double and multiple meanings. In explaining his music, Hosokawa rarely refers to analogies from ancient Japanese poetry, but far more often to the tradition of calligraphy. He ›paints‹ his compositions on the background of silence, on a canvas of silence. At the same time, he is quite familiar with traditional Japanese poetry, for example setting tanka poetry from the Manyôshû collection (8th century) or haikus by Matsuo Bashô (17th century) to music. Hosokawa's music always shows a well-considered formal structure in several sections (usually about twenty bars) as well as typical progressions - the sound emerges from the silence, unfolds from quiet noises to the Ordinary generated tone, becomes more individual, flourishes in long drawn-out tones or small sound gestures and then returns to the interior, to silence. His music certainly knows the gradual development towards a certain climax, which often lies at the beginning of the last third of a composition. Despite this distinctive personal style, the works seem individualized. Hosokawa varies the 'how' of these meditations with care. At the beginning there are often quiet and very quiet noises that come out of nowhere. The ›something‹ crystallizes after a longer spiral-like progression – an apparently concrete line in terms of the motif Silent Flowers (1998), a sound sculpture in Landscape I (1992), a subtle (small) crack in the blending and harmonious overlaying of the colors in Landscape V (1993) Silent Flowers composed Hosokawa for the Donaueschinger Musiktage and the Arditti Quartet for the premiere on October 17, 1998. ›Blume‹ (jap.: hana) is a metaphor for the perfect artistic representation in the Nô theater. However, the title also reflects the temporal (and ephemeral) nature of this flower, particularly in relation to the art of ikebana. “The flowers used are first cut from living plants. So death is already waiting in the background.” Nevertheless, these flowers bloom before they die. “Life doesn't last forever; it is fleeting and evanescent, and that is precisely why it is beautiful. This notion of the transience of time is found in all traditional Japanese arts.« In ikebana, the flower is cut only after a phase of preparation and concentration, during which the ikebana practitioner explores and visualizes the possibilities of the flower stem, like the finished one ikebana arrangement should look like. Hosokawa finds a parallel for this process in the beginning of the piece "with a three-beat rest and a vertically 'clipped' sound (dancekuon), which functions as the end of this pause«. At the same time he refers to calligraphy when he compares the sweeping movement of a brush drawn across the paper with the pressure of the bow on the string. Essential to this is the mute movement that takes place in space before the brush touches the paper or the bow touches the string, as does the pause that follows. Longer phrases then emerge from the noisily 'cut off' sounds. The movement of the musical line, incorporating various noises, changes from sound to silence and back again before 'gradually turning into a deep song' (Hosokawa), which then blossoms. Hosokawa also composed his string quartet for the Arditti Quartet Landscape I (1992), which premiered in Tokyo on May 21, 1992. "In the Landscapeseries is about bringing the single tone or sound to life and the distance of the single tone to its second tone, to its shadow that forms the background. I wanted to create a soundscape with foreground and background.« In contrast to Silent Flowers the piece develops from a hard initial impulse followed by a pause, while the hard initial impulse in Silent Flowers forms the conclusion of an initially inaudible movement of the bow. At the climax of the piece, a violently vibrating sound sculpture emerges, strongly grounded and accentuated by solo pizzicati in the cello. Landscape V for the mouth organ Shô and string quartet (1993) is inspired by pictures by Mark Rothko, in which two almost identical colors mix – but also by a natural experience: in the Finnish town of Kuhmo, Hosokawa observed how clouds of different densities were colored by the setting sun, side by side moved, overlapped and thereby changed form and colour. was performed for the first time Landscape V on November 4, 1993 by Mayumi Miyata and the Sibelius Quartet at Kitakyushu in Japan. The String Quartet Archetypes (1980), premiered in Tokyo on April 3, 1981, is the first string quartet that Hosokawa published. The five movements show a clear formal structure: the concentration on one tone - first pale, soordinate and without vibrato; later with semitone glissando as final; then a pizzicato juxtaposed with a sostenuto section; then a dramatic increase; finally the return to silence (molto calmo, religious). The String Quartet blossoming (2006/07) was commissioned by the Cologne Philharmonic to be performed by the Tokyo String Quartet. The piece unfolds the metaphor of blossoming, the image of the lotus, the symbol of purity, emerging from the mud, growing and blossoming across the surface of the water toward the light. "The sound B, with which the piece begins, stands for the gentle movements of the water surface. The lower registers symbolize the processes under water, the even lower ones stand for the bottom of the pond. Once the bud hits the surface of the pond, the B, she is warmed by the glow of the morning sun and she sings of her longing for blossoming. The flower and I are as one; the blossoming also stands for my inner development.« – »In this piece I used a canonical melody formation. This comes from gagaku music; the melodic process of blossoming can be well represented by this canonical melody, but there always remains a background of long drawn-out lines or sounds.« Walter Wolfgang Sparrer |
program:
[01] Silent Flowers for string quartet (1998) 13:16
[02] Landscape I for string quartet (1992) 11:17
[03] Landscape V for sho and string quartet (1993) 15:31
live recording
Mayumi Miyata, sho
[04] Archetypes for string quartet (1980) 14:56
[05] blossoming for string quartet (2006/2007) 14:04
original version
total time: 69:37
Diotima Quartet
Naaman Sluchin, violin ∙ Yun-Peng Zhao, violin
Franck Chevalier, viola ∙ Pierre Morlet, cello
Press:
May 2017
Arnold Whittall writes in the May issue of Gramophone: “… although he has not subsequently been closely involved with electroacoustics, the possibility of bringing the special resonance of harmonic spectra into a world associated with Buddhist spirituality and rituals features frequently in his music. A range of relatively early works for string quartet … shows that these associations are of long standing.”
11 / 2013, Semele Number 2
Penetrar en la sensibilidad japonesa y además lograrlo con la transparency y precisión desplegada por el Cuarteto Diotima a lo largo de estas cuatro obras nos llena de sincera admiración. La fidelidad de Toshio Hosokawa (Hiroshima, 1955) hacia su inagotable tradición artística permanece inquebrantable acudiendo y apoyándose en todo momento en sus manifestaciones como punto de partida de cada nueva composición. Cuando el compositor se refiere a trazo, gesto, sonido, silencio, a la sombra o la luz, hay ya implícita una referencia a las artes tradicionales japonesas de la caligrafía y la pintura, a la música Gagaku, al teatro Nô, o al arte floral ikebana. El gesto, la forma, aun leve, casi invisible o inaudible, comporta una musicalidad cuyo movimiento temporal discurre en un vacío o silencio desde el que se concreta y alcanza sentido. Hosokawa construye su poético discurso a través de una serie de gestos aislados que paulatinamente se transfiguran dibujando una estructura, cristalizando para, de nuevo, volver a su silencio original dentro de un sistema cíclico en permanente movimiento.
«Encargo del Festival de Donaueschingen de 1998, Silent Flowers toma la imagen las flores para dibujar una metáfora de la vida efímera en el sentido en el que el arte del Ikebana ofrece una nueva oportunidad de vida a la flor. Zeami, author capital del teatro Nô, emplea dicha metáfora para señalar una ejecución de gran altura artística que alcance la calidad de lo sagrado, del misterio, para cuyo largo aprendizaje demanda un corazón concentrado. De modo oscilante, el discurso de Silent Flowers se desenvuelve como un conjunto de expresivos gestos como trémulas y fugaces presencias móviles ligadas a un permanente vacío de fondo a modo de una pintura caligráfica sobre blanco.»
Manuel Luca de Tena (El arte de la fuga, November 2013)
07 2013
Toshio Hosokawa often mentions Oriental calligraphy rather than Eastern poetry as an important influence on his music. This is particularly evident in a number of pieces for solo instruments sharing the title of Sen, a word that refers to a brush-stroke which is of varying density. A brush-stroke may begin with a heavy gesture and end with a thinner line. This is reflected in Hosokawa's music as an audible 'signature' – as in the various Sen pieces. It also serves as a 'mechanism' moving from brute noise into openly musical sound. This is quite often to be heard here with the possible exception of Blossoming that is both the most recent work and also the most accessible.
The earliest work here is the composer's first official string quartet, Urbilder composed in 1980. Although in a single span of a quarter of an hour the piece falls into five short, delineated movements set out in a traditional arch-form. It goes through different climates before returning to the music of its opening: in other words, before returning to its original silence.
Hosokawa composed, and still does so, a number of works titled Landscape for various instrumental forces. Incidentally he also composed several works for orchestra as well as for soloist and orchestra sharing the German title of Landschaft, the German for landscape. Landscape I for string quartet was completed in 1992. It opens assertively – “a sharp opening impulse followed by a rest”; again this is a trait related to calligraphy. The music is, on the whole, more goal-oriented than in some other works by this composer who nevertheless always has a clear idea as to the finality of his narrative process.
Landscape V is for sho and string quartet. According to the composer this was inspired by paintings of Mark Rothko in which two almost identical colors merge. It was also inspired by the composer's watching of drifting clouds, overlapping and variously tinged by the setting sun. True the rather limited range of the shô - an Oriental mouth organ - does not allow for much more than more or less long held notes of varying dynamic. The work, however, is perfectly viable and quite satisfying.
Silent Flowers of 1998 may be the most 'difficult' work here in that it is the one that – to my mind – is the most closely related to calligraphy. It opens with hesitant brush-strokes: noised sounds interspersed with silences. The music proceeds in this way for some two-thirds of the piece when it then reaches its climax, a dazzling flowering that soon disappears into silence. No easy work, this, but one worth investigating.
In almost total contrast, Flowering perfectly lives up to its title. “The piece elaborates the metaphor of flowering using the image of a lotus, the symbol of purity emerging from ooze, growing towards the light above the surface of the water and bursting into flower.” The music quite aptly relies on canonic melodic form to depict the melodic process of blossoming, but “there is always a backdrop of sustained lines or sonorities”. Flowering is the most attractive and readily accessible work in this very fine release and it makes for a quite beautiful conclusion to a disc that may not always be an easy listen. Ultimately though it is quite rewarding if listened to with open ears and open heart.
A number of my comments have been drawn from the excellent insert notes and adapted in an attempt to be as direct as possible in trying to describe the music.
Excellent, strongly committed and meticulously prepared performances from the Quatuor Diotima that do full justice to these often complex but also beautiful works.
Hubert Culot
05/2013
Captivating music that often exists on the edge of silence
The music of composer Toshio Hosokawa (b.1955), Hiroshima-born and Berlin-educated, blends the tough, complex sounds of the European avant-garde with a strange, sometimes alien-sounding Japanese refinement. It's an arresting mix that's ideally suited to the Diotima Quartet's hard-edged yet sensuous playing, full of vivid colors and bewitching sonorities in this captivating disc.
Silence plays a vital role in Hosokawa's quartets: in Silent Flowers (1998), for example, abrupt gestures erupt from an all-enveloping nothingness, and the Diotima's brittle, dramatic performance is impeccably controlled while remaining entirely spontaneous.
In Landscape I (1992) the players effortlessly convey foreground and background ideas in explosions of sound pursued by whispering, shimmering textures.
Mayumi Miyata's sho, a Japanese mouth organ, plays tricks on the ear when it merges with the quartet's sustained harmonies in the exquisite Landscape V (1993), played with joyful freshness by the Diotima foursome.
And they discover a rapturous sensuality in the introspective blossoming (2007), whose slowly unfolding sound worlds and hesitant fragment of melody mirror a lotus bursting into flower.
It's a shame, though, that despite the sharp recordings, there's a distracting background rumble on four of the tracks - especially since this is music that so often exists on the edge of silence.
David Kettle
08.12.2012
Present: What SZ authors read, hear, watch
Gustav Seibt
Toshio Hosokawa / Quatuor Diotima: String Quartet
Japan's world sound in European tonal language
05.12.2012
Toshio Hosokawa: String Quartet
The French ensemble Quatuor Diotima plays the demanding works of the Japanese composer with great accuracy and precision.
In the second half of the 20th century, many Japanese composers were equally influenced by Eastern tradition and Western innovation. In this field of tension, they set out in search of their own artistic identity. This endeavor can be seen in the work of the composer Toshio Hosokawa.
Hosokawa's music is strongly influenced by Zen Buddhism and the examination of the themes of cosmos - life - nature and is at the same time based on the intensive study of western compositional techniques. In this way, a soundscape is created using modern means but based on Japanese traditions. In 1995, Hosokawa expressed his earnest search for an equal synthesis between Eastern and Western music as follows:
“I'm looking for new music that is an adventure, but not in the sense of assimilation. I'm looking for a new form of spiritual culture and music from the Japanese people that stays true to both myself and my heritage. We need to study the West again and more thoroughly in order to objectify our view of ourselves and really get to know ourselves.”
Study years in Tokyo, Berlin and Freiburg
This basic way of thinking and composing already developed during the student years of the artist, who was born in Hiroshima in 1955. He spent them in Tokyo as well as with Isang Yun in Berlin (1976-1983) and with Klaus Huber in Freiburg (1983-1986). After completing his education, he actively participated in the dissemination of contemporary music in his native Japan. Since 1989 he has founded a number of festivals and institutions to promote new music and has been a permanent visiting professor for composition at the Tokyo College of Music since 2004.
The focus of Toshio Hosokawa's work is pure instrumental music. He often combines Western instruments with traditional Japanese instruments, such as mouth organ or various bell shapes.
Great relaxation and tranquility
The French Quatuor Diotima has been at the forefront of interpreting contemporary works for more than a decade. On their latest CD, the musicians present five compositions for string quartet by Toshio Hosokawa. As is so often the case with Hosokawa, the pieces seem like improvised meditations, but they are extraordinarily carefully constructed. Out of the silence comes a first note or a sound surface that slowly swells, has many facets and then fades away again. Tensions are built up and released slowly and carefully. The Quatuor Diotima performs these demanding works with the greatest accuracy and precision. When listening, there is great relaxation and calm, which corresponds to the intentions of the composer. A particular highlight is the composition Landscape V for sho (mouth organ) and string quartet from 1993. The calm tones of the sho merge organically with the mostly sustained string tones.
Bernhard Schrammek, cultureradio