Toshio Hosokawa: ARC-SONG / Nizomi Ueda, Eri Matsumura / Fontec / FOCD9294

雀のかあさん

Violin, 伊藤怜子/ Reiko Ito
Piano, 佐藤伸輝/ Nobuaki Sato
2024. 08. 16, Tokyo, Live Recording

「恋歌 II ＜ロリータ＞」はナボコフの小説『ロリータ』冒頭の有名な一節に基づいて書かれた。形式美と一緒に、言えず、ただ彼女を思い、名前を一人で繰り返して呼んで続けるーーそんな抑圧されつつも強烈な、少女ロリータへの恋心は感じている。そういう普通の恋愛ではない気持ちを表現するため、柔らかさと狂乱という二つの素材を使った。

ヴァイオリンとピアノの編成はこのような音楽に似合うと思う。

このような音楽は、ベルクの音楽とも似合うと思う。彼の最初の作品（Op.1）、「ピアノ・ソナタ」には、そういう柔らかい部分と狂乱する部分どちらもあり、当時婚約者の両親からの強い反対の影響があらわれた。無調を勉強しようとしたが、調性と無調が混雑して、すべての感情を使い切ったような一楽章で終わっている。また、最後の作品、「ヴァイオリン協奏曲＜ある天使の思い出に＞」はこの題材で理想的な傑作だと思う。美しく感動的。その二つの作品を引用した。

歌詞を基づいて声楽と楽器の旋律を書く試みは「恋歌 I」で行った。「恋歌 II」では、楽器のみで、英語版『ロリータ』冒頭部分の文章を「歌詞」として使った。

"Love Song II, 'Lolita'" is based on the famous opening passage of Nabokov’s novel Lolita. Alongside its formal beauty, I feel that the piece captures the suppressed yet intense infatuation for the young girl, Lolita—the infatuation that cannot be spoken, leading to repeatedly calling her name in solitude while consumed by longing. To express such emotions, which deviate from ordinary love, I used two contrasting materials: softness and frenzy.

The combination of violin and piano feels particularly fitting for this kind of music.

This type of music resonates well with Berg’s works. His first composition, Piano Sonata (Op. 1), also contains both soft and frenzied parts, reflecting the strong opposition he faced from his fiancée’s parents at the time. While exploring atonality, the piece blends tonality and atonality, as if exhausting all emotions in a single movement. Additionally, his final work, Violin Concerto: To the Memory of an Angel, is, in my view, an ideal masterpiece on this theme—both beautiful and deeply moving. I referenced these two works in my piece.

In Love Song I, I experimented with writing vocal and instrumental melodies based on lyrics. However, in Love Song II, I chose to use instruments alone, treating the text from the opening passage of the English version of Lolita as the “lyrics.”


Love Songs II, "Lolita"

2024.09.15 Recorded in Tokyo, Japan
Clarinet, Rio Ishida/石田理雄
Otamatone, Music Box, Yikun Qi/斉芸琨
Percussion, Yujin Honda/本多悠人
Piano, Yui Amano/天野由唯
Conduct, Koga Yano/矢野耕我

私の「ピアノソナタ 第1番」は、恋愛を始める前に書こうと思っていたが、恋愛が始まってから書いて、彼女に献呈した作品だ（2025年2月18日私のピアノリサイタルで初演する予定）。今年は失恋した。そのあとすぐ、佐藤伸輝君からドラムセットとなにかの曲が依頼されて、ピアノとドラムセット(optional)のための「ピアノソナタ 第2番」を考えていた。さらにクラリネットはcrazy、オタマトーンは荒唐で、それらを加えたくて、ならもう「ピアノソナタ」ではなくなって、「Although I intended to write Piano Sonata No.2」になる。

全体的には、提示部、３つの展開部、コーダからなる。
提示部はピアノソロから始まる。譜面ではさまざまな連符が難しく見えるが、それは計算されたものではなく、感覚的に音の長さや一連の音の速さを書いたのだ。バッハの「記譜された装飾音」みたいに、私はそれを「記譜された即興」と呼んだ。音も感覚的に選んで、調性と無調が混ざっている。
第一展開部は第一主題から、私がすでに何作で使った、付点八分音符＝72の3/8拍子に入る。ピアノソナタ第1番の素材を引用して、同音連打の動機を発展させた。それからは花束の図形楽譜。
第二展開部はポップスの和音進行、4536251とそのさまざまな変形。非常に美しい部分。カプースチンの作品でよくある、変わらない拍子記号の中の変拍子を使った。
第三展開部はピアノパートのラフマニノフのピアノ協奏曲第2番の引用とほかの楽器の曲線による即興演奏、それから狂乱のクライマックス。
コーダはMusic Boxの部分。作曲中、私の祖母が病気になって亡くなった。そのあと、帰り道で、最初の4小節が浮かんだ。

「荒唐、虚無、甘美、そして非常に難しい」。それは曲ができたら私が書いた言葉。そして、私の音楽の新ロマン主義を見つけた。


My Piano Sonata No. 1 was something I intended to write before falling in love, and I composed it after that and dedicated it to her. I will premiere it at my piano recital on February 18, 2025. We broke up this year. Shortly after, Nobuaki Satoh commissioned me to write a piece for drum set and some other instruments. Initially, I thought of Piano Sonata No. 2 for piano and an optional drum set. However, I wanted to add a clarinet (which I consider "crazy") and an Otamatone (which I describe as "absurd"). Then, it was no longer a "Piano Sonata," so it became Although I intended to write Piano Sonata No. 2.

The overall structure consists of an exposition, three development sections, and a coda.
The exposition starts with a piano solo. The score looks difficult because of various unusual tuplets, but they are not mathematically calculated. Instead, I intuitively wrote the note lengths and the speed of a sequence of notes. Like Bach’s "notated ornaments", I called this "notated improvisation." The pitches were chosen intuitively, blending tonality and atonality.
The first development section transitions into a 3/8 meter at a dotted eighth note = 72, a tempo I had used in several past works. It incorporates material from Piano Sonata No. 1 and I developd the motif of repeated notes. Then there are bouquet-shaped graphic scores.
The second development section uses pop chord progressions,  4-5-3-6-2-5-1, and its variations. This section is particularly beautiful, featuring irregular meter while maintaining a consistent time signature—a technique often used in Kapustin’s works.
The third development section includes a quote from Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in the piano part, improvisations based on curves in the other parts, and a crazy climax.
The coda is a "music box" section. While composing this piece, my grandmother became ill and passed away. After that, on my way home, the initial four measures came to me.

"Absurd, meaningless, sweet, and extremely difficult"—those were the words I wrote after completing the piece. Through this work, I discovered neo-Romanticism in my music.

Yikun Qi - Although I intended to write Piano Sonata No.2 (2024)

Although I intended to write a love song

Philip Glass - String Quartet No. 3 "Mishima", VI "Mishima/Closing"
Performed by Penaliggon's String Quartet, featuring Orla Papadakis, Leni Sewart, Hannah Gardiner and Conor Carleton.

Recorded by Ollie McLoughlin and Joey Penaliggon.
Mixed, produced and mastered by Ollie McLoughlin for the Sound Recording and Production Masters programme, SOAS, December 2017.

Philip Glass - String Quartet No. 3 "Mishima", VI "Mishima/Closing"

The graphic above is a visualization of global wind patterns; massive amounts of weather data are fed into a supercomputer that then produces a live (or pseudo-live) “wind map.” The swirls and swoops are color-coded: areas of blue and green are relatively calm, while red and purple usually imply devastating conditions in a tropical system. There is something particularly poetic about seeing our atmosphere on such a macro scale; the same colors converted from numerical data also suggest Van Gogh-esque brushstrokes. The confluence of the empirical and the aesthetic in the “wind map” has proved wildly inspiring for the composition of this piece.

The Juilliard Orchestra (reading)
Jeffrey Milarsky, conductor

Although I intended to write a love song

XuXiaoru

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