Toshio Hosokawa

Horn Concerto 'Moment of Blossoming'

0:00

The horn concerto starts out of nowhere. The strings play the note E flat in triple ‘piano’, so as quietly as possible.

0:38      Enter brass with wind-like noises

The brass generate wind noises and together with the strings open up a peaceful space. The wind seems to flow through a wind chime: we hear the sound of ‘Furin’, small wind bells from Hosokawa's home country Japan.

1:18       Enter solo horn

Now our soloist Stefan Dohr blends in seamlessly; like the strings, he plays the E flat. According to the composer Hosokawa, this note symbolizes the surface of water.

1:48      End of muted solo horn/enter Furin

The solo horn player now brings the music to life with a small step. In this work, the solo horn represents a lotus flower, which now begins to bloom and looks out from the surface of the water.

2:25      Enter muted solo horn

All the other instruments represent the things that surround the lotus flower: the cosmos, nature, water. The environment seems to absorb the change in the lotus flower: the horn is first imitated by the strings and then by wind instruments spread around the hall.

3:08      Fermata pause, strings only

The composer says about the beginning of the work: 'We hear the individual sounds and at the same time perceive with appreciation the process of how they are born and then vanish, like a tonally animated landscape of becoming.'

5:05      Celesta chord

Toshio Hosokawa (*1955) studied first in Japan and then in Germany. This gave rise to his distinctive musical language, which is based on 20th-century Western music and traditional Japanese culture.

6:40      Fermata pause, strings only

The lotus flower seemed to continue blossoming. Like a gentle beam of light falling on the flower, a new world of sound is now opening up. Here, the composer wants the solo horn to play ‘cantabile’ (songlike).

7:30       Enter Flute

Now comes the first climax: the solo horn suddenly alternates between very quiet and very loud tones. Soloist Stefan Dohr muffles the soft tones by placing his hand in the bell of the horn.

7:55      ppp after climax

The whole work is one big metaphor: the lotus flower stands for the ‘I’ - the human being, growing up from youth to maturity in a turbulent world. Did we just hear the first hurdle that had to be overcome?

8:33      Enter horn solo

There are now repeated turbulent phases followed by brief moments of calm. Trills in the string instruments and the solo horn create a huge amount of unrest.

10:05    Enter horn solo

One of the greatest climaxes of the piece is now reached. What is happening in the development of the ‘I’ right now? The orchestra, especially the percussion, produces sounds like thunder.

11:40     Staccato entry of high woodwind

What does that make you think of right now? Torrential rain, maybe? This is what Stephan Dohr hopes for: ‘The audience should be as open as possible, should listen and form their own thoughts.’

12:30    Enter strings and percussion

Suddenly, a period of calm follows, closely resembling the opening. With the playing instruction ‘dolce (tender) cantabile (songlike), with sorrow’, the solo horn player blends into the sound, as in the beginning.

14:00    End woodwind/ sf horn solo

This is followed by a final surge. Once again, a top performance is demanded from the soloist: within a very short time, he has to exhaust the full tonal range and cope with large differences in volume.

14:41    sf in brass/ p< solo horn

Stefan Dohr, to whom the work is dedicated, has been principal horn of the Berlin Philharmonic since 1993. This final climax ends in great excitement with the playing instruction ‘fluttertongue’.

15:45    Enter viola solo

Individual soloists, first in the strings, then also in the wind section, play a delicate melody. Hosokawa refers to this simultaneously as ‘espressivo’, expressive.

17:20    Muted horn line

The work was premiered in 2011 with Stephan Dohr as soloist. One critic wrote: ‘The soft and delicate sounds that he (Dohr) was able to elicit from his instrument is almost magical.’ Listen for yourself one last time!

18:00     Enter harp

The piece ends as it began: with the sound of wind over the surface of the water. In Buddhism, praying hands symbolize a lotus flower. This flower, i.e. a human being, has now become one with nature in Hosokawa’s composition.

Text: Joschua Lettermann