dancing phlogiston / 踊る燃素 (2010)
Genre / ジャンル
Solo Shakuhachi / 尺八独創
Instrumentation / 編成
1.8 and 2.3 shaku length instruments / 1尺８寸管と２尺3寸管
Duration / 演奏時間
15 minutes / 15分
Other information / 他の情報
Premièred 19 May 2013, Tokyo National Museum, Kujōkan, Tokyo, by Christopher Yohmei Blasdel
2013年5月19日、東京国立博物館・九条館に於いて、クリストファー遙盟氏によって初演されました
2013年5月19日、東京国立博物館・九条館に於いて、クリストファー遙盟氏によって初演されました
Score available for purchase (pdf or printed copy) from the Canadian Music Centre.
Programme Note
This piece developed out of my long relationship with the shakuhachi player Joe Browning, who commissioned and premiered my shakuhachi concerto locked darkness in 2005. In the autumn of 2009, I was asked by the German artist Thomas Neumann to collaborate on an installation called Ghosts which would deal with abstractions of urban Japanese life seen from an outsider’s perspective. I took the opportunity to create an electroacoustic work based around specially-composed samples of shakuhachi music recorded for me by Joe. The present piece is a distillation of that 30-minute work into a 12-15 minute solo composition suitable for concert performance.
One dominant feature of the original electroacoustic work was the interplay between the standard 1.8 shaku (an old Japanese unit of length) flute and the 2.4 shaku flute, which has a deeper, more unstable, sound. This aspect is preserved, and the performer uses both instruments, in this piece. Though the piece has an overall structure which bears some resemblance to traditional Japanese musical forms, it can also be seen as a series of short pieces, almost a suite of undeveloped motifs, separated by various intervals of silence.
One dominant feature of the original electroacoustic work was the interplay between the standard 1.8 shaku (an old Japanese unit of length) flute and the 2.4 shaku flute, which has a deeper, more unstable, sound. This aspect is preserved, and the performer uses both instruments, in this piece. Though the piece has an overall structure which bears some resemblance to traditional Japanese musical forms, it can also be seen as a series of short pieces, almost a suite of undeveloped motifs, separated by various intervals of silence.
解説
本作品は尺八協奏曲「鎖ざれし闇」(2005 年)を献呈し、また初演した尺八奏者ジョ ー・ブラウニング氏のために書いた作品 を、この演奏会のために特に書き改めたも の。2009年秋、東京を拠点に活動していた ドイツの造形作家トマス・ノイマン氏の依 頼を受け、ブラウニング氏とわたしはこの 「踊る燃素」の元となる作品を電子音楽で 作った。そうしてノイマン氏の彫刻と我々 の音楽を組み合わせ、「外国人の目で見た 東京」というテーマのインスタレーション 作品「幽霊」を作った。その長大な電子音 楽の改作がこの「踊る燃素」である。標準 的な一尺八寸の「尺八」の他に、深みのあ る低音が出せる二尺四寸の尺八も用いられ る。