Sen I - Toshio Hosokawa International Festival of Contemporary Music Warsaw Autumn

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Sen I (1984) combines the sounds of the flute with the sounds of the flutist breathing, creating a unique soundscape that could be described as a new extended flute technique, but which, at least to me, is more time-honoured than modern. The composer comments: “The word ‘sen’ refers to the brush strokes found in the Japanese art of calligraphy. When a Zen priest paints a stroke, the brush follows the following movement: It starts at a point, moves across the paper, and returns to a point on the background. The visible stroke is brought to life by the invisible, dynamic space where nothing is written or painted.”