Momo Kodama / Seiji Ozawa / Mito Chamber Orchestra HOSOKAWA / MOZART

 

HOSOKAWA / MOZART

Hiyoli Togawa SONGS OF SOLITUDE

 

SONGS OF SOLITUDE

 

Espen Aalberg / Trondheim Sinfonietta / Kai Grinde Myrann MANTRA

On this disc, the Trondheim Sinfonietta, founded in 1998, has gathered four works from the three decades encompassing the ensemble’s existence. All four seem to be haunted by an even deeper past: Bent Sørensen’s Minnelieder is the composer’s third version of a work originally sparked-off by a book about the 14th century, while Toshio Hosokawa’s Drawing, from a decade later, was inspired by the very start of life. Kristin Norderval’s Chapel Meditation began its existence as an improvisation, but looks back to music from centuries earlier, while the most recent work, Mantra by Ellen Lindquist, also mines a venerable musical tradition, that of the age-old Indonesian gamelan orchestra that for over 100 years has had an influence on Western composers such as Debussy, Britten, Steve Reich et al.
Set for varying forces and numbers of performers, the four works together form a fascinating picture of the kaleidoscopic possibilities open to composers around the turn of the millennium.

Juri Vallentin BRIDGES

What a development the oboe has endured since it was largely responsible for creating pastoral moods or laments! At Genuin Classics, Juri Vallentin captures the entire timbre of a modern instrument on this recording. The prizewinner of the 2017 German Music Competition and other major competitions demonstrates the oboe's rich tone in interaction with wonderful chamber music partners. A real bridge over the centuries: sparkling baroque music of Pez and Couperin meets the exciting sounds of Hosokawa and Erkoreka. An exquisite programme and a world-class performance!

Momo Kodama DEBUSSY - HOSOKAWA Point and Line

Born in Osaka, educated at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, Momo Kodama is well-placed to approach music from both Eastern and Western vantage points, as she does in this album which interweaves etudes of Claude Debussy (1862-1918) and Toshio Hosokawa (born 1955). Both composers have similarly been border-crossers. Debussy, pointing to music of the future, looked to the Orient for inspiration. Hosokawa has combined aspects of Japanese and European tradition in his contemporary compositions. Momo Kodama: “In the music of Toshio Hosokawa I find elements close to Debussy: the freedom of form and tone colour, the sense of poetic design, with a wide range of lyricism and dynamics, between meditation and virtuoso development, between light and shade, between large gestures and minimalist refinement.”
Point and Line is the pianist’s second ECM album and follows the widely-praised La vallée des cloches, with music of Ravel, Takemitsu and Messiaen, of which American Record Guide noted. “Kodama’s impeccable technique and facility for crystalline sounds makes for a mesmerizing program. “ (ECM Records) 

Point and Line is the pianist’s second ECM album and follows the widely-praised La vallée des cloches, with music of Ravel, Takemitsu and Messiaen, of which American Record Guide noted. “Kodama’s impeccable technique and facility for crystalline sounds makes for a mesmerizing program.

“The album is called ‘Point and Line’ after one of the Hosokawa studies, but that name also hints at the cool definition of Kodama’s playing. Her touch is immaculate and diligent, neatly flamboyant in the Debussy and reassuringly robust in the Hosokawa. She writes that both composers are ‘between meditation and virtuoso development, between light and shade, between large gestures and minimalist refinement’ – and it’s those places in between that make her interpretations interesting. (Kate Molleson / The Guardian) 

Japanese pianist Momo Kodama reaches halfway around the world and across a century of time to bring together the 12 late études of Debussy and six études written between 2011 and 2013 by her countryman, Toshio Hosokawa. […] Kodama eschews chronology and interweaves the pieces into a sometimes boundary-blurring sequence that trades on the cross-fertilisation between French and Japanese composers. Her performing style in the Debussy also tends to downplay the pieces’ étude-like nature. A fascinating collection. (Michael Dervan / The Irish Times)

TOSHIO HOSOKAWA Vertical Time Study I - Sen V - In die Tiefe der Zeit - Melodia - Vertical Time Study III

In his series Vertical Time Study, Hosokawa seeks to "integrate Noh’s vertical structure of time into my own music. It is about how temporal elements, like wedges, disrupt the vertical, horizontal timeline at irregular intervals. These disruptions produce elements of tension … creating visible fissures in the structure of time and visible cracks in space. My aim is to examine the complexity and the depth of these sounds hidden in the moment." In his piece Sen V, Hosokawa tries to combine the "earth’s groaning" - his personal impression of Tibetan Shomyo (Buddhist monk chants) – with the sound of the accordion. The same instrument plays an important role in his 1994 piece In die Tiefe der Zeit, in which it acts as the female counterpart to the solo cello. Both instruments are embraced by the string section representing the universe. The part for accordion in Melodia, which represents Hosokawa’s attempt to portray the "flow of sounds in our souls", is inspired by the sound of the ancient Chinese Sheng. The special relationship with Buddhist ideas is the hallmark of Hosokawa’s oeuvre: "It is possible to attain the state of Buddha in a single note." (Proverb)

JOHN CAGE Two4 - TOSHIO HOSOKAWA In die Tiefe der Zeit

The Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa describes his music as calligraphy with notes in space and time, notes that come from the world of silence and also return to it. He understands his composition "In die Tiefe der Zeit" [Into the Depths of Time] as a mythic soundscape. To the traditional Japanese "paths" of discovering the self, Toshio Hosokawa adds another one: the "path of music".

John Cage, too, decided early on to take the "path of music", and he thoroughly explored non-Western systems of thought and ways of life.

Münchener Kammerorchester / Alexander Liebreich TOSHIO HOSOKAWA Landscapes

ECM’s ongoing series of recordings with the Munich Chamber Orchestra continues with an intriguing album of new and recent pieces by Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa. Amongst the featured compositions are “Sakura für Otto Tomek” and “Cloud and Light”, both written in 2008, and “Ceremonial Dance”, written in 2000. These 21st century pieces are brought together with “Landscape V” (originally from 1993 and for string quartet, and subsequently expanded into an orchestral version). Mayumi Miyata, perhaps contemporary music’s best-known shô player, is heard here with the MKO in a recording made at Munich’s Himmelfahrtskirche (Church of the Ascension) in October 2009.

Paul Griffiths describes the internal processes of Hosokawa’s music in the liner notes: “The interplay of shô and strings, and in particular their mutual imitation, is the driving force – or perhaps one should say ‘drifting force’, given that the music carries itself so lightly. 

These two central components moving in tandem suggest the confluence of vapour and light of which clouds are made. (…) Almost everything is centred in the shô and its world of far-off harmonies, soft yet scintillating – harmonies as impalpable and ever-changing as clouds. Like clouds, Hosokawa’s music is constantly in motion yet constantly the same. As the piece continues, its effect is of observing clouds in a largely peaceful sky, clouds that are mostly white but occasionally show shadows and briefly stir into more turbulent action.”
Landscapes is ECM’s second reckoning with Hosowaka: his music was previously featured on the critically acclaimed Yun/Bach/Hosokawa album of Thomas Demenga (ECM 1782), issued a decade ago. Since then, the composer’s music has been heard with increasing frequency in Europe. In July of this year, Hosakawa’s opera “Matsukaze”, with choreography by Sascha Waltz, was premiered at the Berlin Staatsoper and received much positive media attention including a full page in the NY Times. (ECM Records)