Toshio Hosokawa

Toshio Hosokawa
Born (1955-10-23)23 October 1955
Hiroshima, Japan
Education Berlin University of the Arts
Occupation Composer
Awards

Toshio Hosokawa (細川 俊夫, Hosokawa Toshio, born 23 October 1955) is a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music. He studied in Germany but returned to Japan, finding a personal style inspired by classical Japanese music. He composed operas, the oratorio Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima, and instrumental music.

Biography

Hosokawa was born in Hiroshima and studied with Yun Isang at the Berlin University of the Arts. From 1983 to 1986 he studied with Klaus Huber and Brian Ferneyhough at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg.[1] Huber sent him back to Japan, where he found his personal style influenced by traditional Japanese music.[2] From 1998 to 2007 he served as Composer-in-Residence at the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. In 2004, Hosokawa became a guest professor at the Tokyo College of Music and in 2001 a member of Academy of Arts, Berlin.

Invited by Walter Fink, he was the 18th composer featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2008. In a concert of chamber music, played by the Arditti Quartet and Mayumi Miyata (Shō), works such as "Silent Flowers" and "Blossoming" were presented, in which the composer tried to give nature a voice (der Natur ... eine Stimme zu geben). and his oratorio Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima was performed at Eberbach Abbey by the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne and the WDR Rundfunkchor Köln, conducted by Rupert Huber, with soloist Gerhild Romberger.[2] The oratorio was conceived in 1989 as a requiem for the victims of the nuclear bombs of 6 August 1945, but was expanded to a suite in five movements in 2001 in response to ecological problems due to economic growth.[3] Among the texts is a poem "Heimkehr" (Returning home) by Paul Celan, and a haiku by Matsuo Bashō. The music uses wind sounds, tone clusters, and percussion close to natural sounds, while the choral writing seems close to European models.[2] In 2010, he composed a chamber music work for his friend Walter Fink, Für Walter (For Walter), for soprano saxophone and piano, with percussion ad libitum, and was present when it was premiered in a concert on Fink's 80th birthday.[4]

Awards and honors

Hosokawa has received the following awards and honors:

Compositions

Opera

Premiere Title Description Libretto and source Notes
19 April 1998, Gasteig / Munich Biennale Vision of Lear Opera in 2 acts, 105' Tadashi Suzuki, after his stage play The Tale of Lear
8 July 2004, Théâtre du Jeu de Paume / Festival d'Aix-en-Provence Hanjo Opera in one act, 80' the composer, after the English translation by Donald Keene of the modern Noh play by Yukio Mishima
3 May 2011, La Monnaie, Brussels Matsukaze Opera in one act, 80' Hannah Dübgen, after the Noh play Matsukaze by Zeami [5][6]
24 January 2016, Staatsoper Hamburg Stilles Meer Opera in one act, 90' Hannah Dübgen, after an original text by Oriza Hirata in the German translation by Dorothea Gasztner [7]
1 July 2018, Staatstheater Stuttgart Erdbeben. Träume. Opera in one act, 90' Marcel Beyer, based on Das Erdbeben von Chili by Heinrich von Kleist [8][9][10][11]

Oratorio

Orchestral

  • Preludio (1982)
  • In die Tiefe der Zeit (Into the Depths of Time)
  • Ferne Landschaft I (a work commissioned by Kyoto city. 1987, Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi & Kyoto Symphony Orchestra.)
  • Ferne Landschaft II (a work commissioned by the Gunma Symphony Orchestra. 1996, Ken Takaseki & Gunma Symphony Orchestra.)
  • Ferne Landschaft III – seascapes of Fukuyama (a work commissioned by Fukuyama city. 1996, Naohiro Totsuka & Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra.)[12]
  • Circulating Ocean (2005)
  • danses imaginaires (2007)
  • Woven Dreams (2009–10)
  • Meditation (2011–12) for the victims of the tsunami (3.11)

Concertante

  • Flute concerto Per Sonare (1988)
  • Cello concerto (1997)
  • Voyage I for violin and ensemble (1997)
  • Voyage II for bassoon and ensemble (1997)
  • Lotus under the Moonlight (Hommage à Mozart) for piano and orchestra (2006)
  • Chant for cello and orchestra (2009)
  • Horn concerto Moment of Blossoming (2010)
  • Sublimation for cello and orchestra (2016)

Chamber music

  • Landscape V for shō and string quartet (1993)
  • Silent Flowers for string quartet (1998)
  • Deep Silence (2002), duets for shō (bamboo mouth organ) and accordion in the Gagaku style, including:
    • Cloudscapes - Moon Night
    • Wie ein Atmen im Lichte after a drawing of Rudolf Steiner
    • Sen V
  • Blossoming for string quartet (2007)
  • Kalligraphie for string quartet (2007)
  • Lied II (リート Ⅱ) for viola and piano (2008)
  • Für Walter for soprano saxophone and piano, percussion ad libitum (2010), dedicated to Walter Fink for his 80th birthday
  • Spell (呪文) for violin solo (2010)
  • Lullaby of Itsuki: from Japanese Folk Songs (五木の子守歌 −日本民謡より−) for violin and piano (2011)
  • Threnody: To the victims of the Tōhoku 3.11 earthquake (哀歌 −東日本大震災の犠牲者に捧げる−) for viola solo (2011)
  • Water of Lethe for Piano Quartet, composed 2016 for the Fauré Quartet, supported by the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung

Vocal music

  • "Renka I" for soprano and guitar (1986)
  • "Three love songs" for voice and alto saxophone (2005)
  • "Klage" for soprano and orchestra (2013)
  • "Drei Engel-Lieder" for soprano and harp (2014)

Choral music

  • "Ave Maria for 16-part mixed choir a cappella" (1991)[13]

Solo works

References

  1. ↑ Galliano, Luciana (2002). Yogaku: Japanese Music in the 20th Century. Scarecrow Press. p. 303. ISBN 978-1-46-167455-9.
  2. 1 2 3 Döring, Gerd (2 September 2008). "Klangmächtige Kathedralen". Frankfurter Rundschau (in German). Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  3. 1 2 "Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima". Schott Music (in German). Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  4. ↑ Hauff, Andreas (8 September 2010). "Ehrungen und Raritäten. Die Endphase beim Rheingau-Musik-Festival". Neue Musikzeitung (in German). Retrieved 15 July 2017.
  5. ↑ Robin, William (4 August 2011). "Haunting Unpredictability". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  6. ↑ Iuchi, Chiho (1 March 2018). "Rethinking noh for the opera crowd". The Japan Times. Tokyo. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  7. ↑ Brug, Manuel (25 January 2016). "Wie klang die Kernschmelze von Fukushima?". Die Welt (in German). Hamburg. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  8. ↑ Zerbst, Rainer (1 July 2018). "Bedrückendes Bild einer brutalen Gesellschaft". Deutschlandfunk Kultur (in German). Köln: Deutschlandradio. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  9. ↑ Jungblut, Peter (2 July 2018). "Dunkle Geschichte, in Einzelteile zerfallen". BR Klassik (in German). München: Bayerischer Rundfunk. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  10. ↑ Loeckle, Wolf (3 July 2018). ""Erdbeben. Träume" – Toshio Hosokawas Uraufführung an der Oper Stuttgart". neue musikzeitung (in German). Regensburg. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  11. ↑ Brembeck, Reinhard J. (2 July 2018). "Hier mordet die Musik". Süddeutsche Zeitung (in German). München. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  12. ↑ Ferne Landschaft III, Schott
  13. ↑ BIS Records 1090

Further reading

  • Narazaki, Yoko. 2001. "Hosokawa, Toshio". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
  • Toshio Hosokawa on Naxos site
  • Toshio Hosokawa on Neos site, a label for Contemporary Music
  • Toshio Hosokawa on Schott Music site
  • Toshio Hosokawa on agent's site
  • "Toshio Hosokawa biography" (in French). IRCAM. Including a detailed list of works
  • Interview by Fabrizio Rota
  • Toshio Hosokawa on Goethe-Institut Korea site


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