TOSHIO HOSOKAWA Works for Flute Yoshie Ueno © Kaz Ishikawa Toshio Hosokawa ( *1955 ) 1 Ruinas ( 2014 ) 11:24 1 SEN I for flute ( 1984 ) for tenor saxophone フルート独奏のための「線 I」 ( 1984 ) 10:48 2 Fragmentos Facturados ( 2014 ) 07:18 2 BIRDS FRAGMENTS III for bass flute, piccolo and shō ( 1990 ) for alto saxophone フルートと笙のための「鳥たちへの断章III」 ( 1990 ) 06:21 3 Serán Ceniza ( 2015 ) 09:20 3 VERTICAL SONG I for flute ( 1995 ) for soprano saxophone フルート独奏のための「垂直の歌I」 ( 1995 ) 06:44 4 Objetos de la noche ( 2015 ) 16:08 4 ATEM-LIED for bass flute ( 1997 ) for baritone saxophone バスフルートのための「息の歌」 ( 1997 ) 07:36 5 Arietta ( 2016 ) 10:10 5 LIED for flute and piano (2007 ) for sopranino saxophone フルートとピアノのための「リート」 (2007 ) 06:39 6 Límite ( 2018 ) 12:44 6 KURODA-BUSHI for alto flute ( 2004 ) for bass saxophone アルトフルートのための「黒田節」 ( 2004 ) 03:20 TT 67:04 TT 42:28 1 – 6 Yoshie Ueno, flutes 上野由恵（フル ート) 2 Mayumi Miyata, shō 宮田まゆみ（笙） 5 Ken’ichi Nakagawa, piano 中川賢一 3 4 Toshio Hosokawa ensemble ) even features one traditional The version developed by Theobald and his works for flute Japanese instru ment, the bamboo Böhm around 1850 with a body made flute, shakuhachi. The latter work was of metal, a cylindrical bore of the air arranged for large orchestra in 2011, cane, and a sophis ti cated system of and this new arrangement is entitled finger plates to cover the tone holes, is Autumn Wind. the norm today. Toshio Hosokawa explains his special Since ancient times, flutes have also interest in the flute as follows: “For me been used prominently in Japanese the flute is the instrument which can music. In the cere monial court music most deeply realise my musical ideal. gagaku and in the music of the nō The flute can produce a sound by means theater, different types of the flute, each of the breath, and can be a vehicle by with specific sound characteristics and Among the approximately 150 compo- which the breath transmits the sound’s distinctive playing techniques, play an sitions that Toshio Hosokawa has life-power.“ 1 When playing the flute, the important role. In addition, there is the created to date, there are some works breath flow is directed upon a sharp shakuhachi, the playing of which has for flute in which the peculiarities of his edge or notch. The resulting vibrations been influenced by the centuries of musical language become particularly excite the air contained in the resonant use of the instrument in the meditation clear. In addition to the solo pieces Sen I cavity within the flute, which can be practice of Zen Buddhism. Even today, ( 1984 ), Vertical Song ( 1995 ), Atem-Lied heard as sound. The close relationship in the traditional musical idiom of the ( 1997 ), and Kuroda-bushi as well as the between breath, the essence of life, and instrument, the “natural sound” is duos Birds Fragments III ( 1990, with the resulting sound makes it possible considered as the ideal, where the shō) and Lied ( 2007, with piano ), there on the flute to express one’s emotions boundaries between musical tones are the flute concertoPer Sonare ( 1988, and energies directly. and noise are blurred. Here, the flute with large orchestra ), Voyage V ( 2001, becomes a “sounding bamboo” and with chamber orchestra ), and a version The flute is one of the oldest musical the breath that is trans formed by it into by Kuroda- bushi for alto flute and voice instru ments known to mankind, and “sound” turns out as the sound of nature, ( 2001 ). While all of these works were it has found widespread use in many conveying the experience of becoming written for the trans verse flute in its cultures. In Western music, beginning one with the energies of the universe. various sizes, from the piccolo to the in the Middle Ages the longitudinally- bass flute, Sorrow River ( 2016, with played instrument, the recorder, was string orchestra ) has a longitudinal flute, preferred initially. By the middle of th 1 Toshio Hosokawa, Booklet notes to the CD the occidental recorder, and Voyage X – the 18 century the side-blown ( or Toshio Hosokawa: Flute Music, Naxos 8.572479 Nozarashi ( 2009, with instrumental transverse ) flute became “the flute”. (2010). 5 In a search for their own musical Hosokawa has formed this musical kagurabue, a gagaku trans verse flute language contem porary Japanese language by closely referencing to that is only played with mikagura, the com posers writing for Western instru- the aesthe tic and spiritual roots of ritual music at the imperial Shinto ments have also been inspired by the Japanese thought and artistic activities. shrines. “Here the tone sequences of traditions of Japanese flute playing. For him, music should primarily be the kagurabue proceed over a long One of the first was Kazuo Fukushima an expression of “nature”. This does period of time at such a slow tempo ( *1930 ). In his flute pieceMei ( 1962 ), not refer to a romantic category, that it might appear monotonous. On which today is included in the standard but a synonym for the “universe” closer listening they turn out to be repertoire of all flute players worldwide, and “life”. “Nature” is the source of lines of sound made up of various he consciously took up playing tech- the all- generating and determining microtones and a delicate portamento. niques of the traditional solo music fundamental energy ( Japanese ki 気 ). The sound is not homogeneous; rather, of the shakuhachi and adapted them To recognize this ki and to become one it is composed of very complex sounds to the western flute. Other Japanese with it result in a fulfill ment of life. “I try containing breath sounds and overtones composers such as Tōru Takemitsu to touch the energy center of human as well. Because the kagurabue is a ( 1930 – 1996 ) and Jōji Yuasa ( *1929 ) life with my music,” Hosokawa explains. very simple instrument, it cannot easily followed him. “Every individual note must have its maintain a constant pitch, which is why own life. Music should definitely carry it is used to produce complex sounds Toshio Hosokawa builds on this ki, this primal energy of nature.” The similar to natural noise like the rustling development, but does not stop at just starting point is the individual tone into of the wind”. 4 adding numerous new techniques and which Hosokawa wants us to immerse sound effects to the playing of the ourselves in order to appreciate how European flute, as the flautist Pierre- this tone, stimulated by natural energy, Yves Artaud ( *1946 ) has summarized is born, lives and dies thus creating in them in his publication Flûtes Au the sequence of tones “a sound land- 2 Pierre-Yves Artaud, Gérard Geay, Flûtes Au Présent 2. Not only does Hosokawa scape of continual becoming that is Présent: Traité Des Techniques Contemporaines 3 Sur Les Flûtes Traver sières, À L’usage Des Com- expand and dif­feren tiate these tech- animated in itself” . positeurs Et Des Flutistes. Paris: Editions Jobert niques even more precisely with his & Editions musicales transatlantiques, 1980. own notational signs ( e.g. in Sen I he This “individual tone” is not a perfectly 3 Toshio Hosokawa, Stille und Klang, Schatten und prescribes three ways of producing rounded, flawless “musical tone” in the Licht. Gespräche mit Walter-Wolfgang Sparrer. Hofheim: Wolke Verlag, 2012, pp. 41 – 42, 85. sounds with breath noise only ); he con ven tional under standing, but rather 4 Toshio Hosokawa, “The Pattern and the Fabric: integrates them firmly into his musical a “sound” in an elemen tary and compre- In Search of a Music, Profound and Meaningful.” language as self-evident and equally hensive sense with all shades up to In: Ästhetik und Komposition: Zur Aktualität der Darmstädter Ferien kursarbeit, ed. by Gianmario important elements. “noise”. Hosokawa once discovered this Borio and Ulrich Mosch. Mainz: Schott, 1994, elementary “sound” in the Japanese p. 75. 6 These kinds of sound aesthetics find single note has a form of its own. It is The six flute compositions on this CD, their analogy in the aesthetics of the a point or a line, painted with a brush rendered impressively and with intense traditional Japanese art of writing. For on a white canvas of silence. Its free devotion by Yoshie Ueno, each show a one single character, the calligrapher’s edge, as part of the silence, is just as way of experiencing the music intended brush, which consists of hundreds of important as the audible rest.” 5 And just by Toshio Hosokawa as a profound art hairs, creates strokes on the white as the energy of the universe manifests of expression. paper that range from the most delicate itself in a brushstroke, according to lines to strong dots saturated with this understanding, the breath of life, Heinz-Dieter Reese ink and can have a variety of shapes, the life energy, should become a tone straight and curved. These “ink traces” expressing ki. Sound and non-sound ( bokuseki ) on the paper testify to the ( “silence” ) are mutually dependent. movement- driven impulses that work It is only when both of them work invisibly from outside the paper. They together that music depicting the fine sugges tively refer to the energy behind movements of that energy is created. the visible surface of all phenomena. The calligra phic process does not begin “In my music I try not to express the outer on the paper, but at a certain point in layers of human emotions, but rather the space above the paper. The impulse their depths,” emphasizes Hosokawa, emanating from there leads the brush “by allowing the underlying energy in the hand of the calligrapher across of the great nature (‘Mother Nature’) the paper in one movement, manifests to be felt.” 6 This energy is conveyed itself in variously pro nounced “traces” through the sounds of nature like the and comes back to the starting point of rustling of the wind and through the the movement.