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

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This is the second work of a solo music series dedicated to contemporary virtuosi. It was conceived as a work for a solo flute in 1984. To portray the sounds that penetrate today’s hearts, each and every sound is differentiated, and previously unknown executions are developed correspondingly. 

In this music, lines of diverse styles are drawn within a sphere of sound space between the highest note and the lowest note (the lowest string is tuned low by a minor third) which are presented at the beginning. The rhythmic structure, based on the measure of 4:3 / 3:2, changes slowly at one point, and then abruptly at another. Its time structure is hidden within the sounds of the music. It could be compared to a texture of sound, where the sounds act as lines from which the patterns of this music emerge. I am deeply interested in creating a place for sounds as textures, which vastly extends beyond the sound. 

The work consists of four parts. Part 1 presents a process whereby dotlike sounds gradually grow into lines, while in Part 2 delicate variations in high tones are traced through elongated overtones. Part 3 follows a transition of curved lines which ascend from the low tones little by little to the high tones. In Part 4, the tonal range is expanded spirally until the sphere set at the beginning between the highest and the lowest tones is broken up to reveal the body movements of the instrument player which are the source of the sound. Here the player, holding two bows at a time, creates sound by scratching the lowest string with the right hand, and the section of the 4th string below the bridge with the left hand, with the two bows applied crosswise. The music fades away as if buried in a faraway intrinsic scene. 

Dedicated to Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi who premiered this work and to Michael Bach.