Hosokawa & Rachmaninov
PROGRAMME NOTES
written by AURÉLIE WALSCHAERT
Toru Takemitsu A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden (1977)
Toshio Hosokawa Violin Concerto “Genesis” (2020)
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Sergei Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 (1907)
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21.03.2026 FLAGEY BRUSSELS
In A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden, the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu (1930–1996) invites the listener on a leisurely walk through a Japanese garden: ‘You can wander freely, pausing now and then to take in the garden as a whole, or to let your gaze rest on a single tree, plant, stone, or a trace in the sand.’ His composition feels like a welcome suspension of time, asking nothing more than to experience the passing sonic panorama in the moment.
The music of Takemitsu’s compatriot Toshio Hosokawa (born 1955) unfolds with a similarly organic flow. In his Violin Concerto Genesis, the soloist’s melody is born from the orchestra’s womb, only to dissolve back into it at the end. The refined webs of sound give way to passionate melodies and a lush orchestration in Sergei Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2 (1873–1943). From its very first performance, this work proved an instant favourite with audiences.
I want to follow both Japanese tradition and Western innovation; maintaining these two musical approaches simultaneously has become the central focus of my compositional process. It is a contradiction I do not wish to resolve – on the contrary, I want the two styles to confront one another. I seek a sound as intense as silence itself.
A bridge between East and West
When the young Takemitsu found himself in a military camp in 1944 and suddenly heard Debussy’s chanson Parlez-moi d’amour, he made a pact with himself to become a composer after the war. He received no formal training, teaching himself composition by immersing himself in a wide range of musical styles, from Duke Ellington and Claude Debussy to Olivier Messiaen and John Cage. At first, he deliberately turned away from Japanese music: ‘When I decided to become a composer, I wanted to write Western music. At that time, everything Japanese was utterly repugnant to me, undoubtedly as a consequence of the war.’
That attitude shifted when Cage drew his attention to the value of his own cultural heritage. Gradually, Takemitsu came to embrace both his Eastern roots and his Western influences. He saw himself as a bridge between the two cultures: ‘I want to follow both Japanese tradition and Western innovation; maintaining these two musical approaches simultaneously has become the central focus of my compositional process. It is a contradiction I do not wish to resolve – on the contrary, I want the two styles to confront one another. I seek a sound as intense as silence itself.’
photo: Toru Takemitsu was introduced as one of “the faces of today” in The Yomiuri Shimbun in January 1960.
Alongside some fifty film scores for Japanese cinema, Takemitsu composed a substantial body of work for piano, voice, chamber ensembles, and orchestra. Like his great model Debussy, he attached paramount importance to timbre and subtle sound effects. His music is poetic in nature, suffused with rich harmonies and mist-like melodies. He described his works as ‘unfolded picture scrolls’ and likened listening to music to a walk through a Japanese garden, where the various textures, shapes, and details coalesce into a coherent whole. ‘Each individual element does not impose its own identity, but reaches a state of anonymity – that is the kind of music I wish to create,’ he wrote.
A striking embodiment of this philosophy is A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden, his best-known orchestral work, composed in 1977 on commission from the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Referring to one of the fundamental principles of Japanese garden design, which allows only the numbers three, five, and seven as structural bases, Takemitsu makes extensive use of pentatonic scales. He also evokes instruments from traditional Japanese court music through Western counterparts. The sustained opening chords in the winds, for example, recall the timbre of the Japanese mouth organ shō, while the expressive oboe melody brings to mind the traditional double-reed instrument hichiriki. John Cage’s influence is never far away either: in certain passages, the orchestral sections are divided and instructed to repeat short musical fragments at their own discretion. The conductor nonetheless retains control, signalling when the orchestra should move from one section to the next.
I am searching for a new form of Japanese music, one in which I can remain true to myself and to my roots. Western culture plays an important role in this.
The orchestra as a source of life
Like Takemitsu, Hosokawa weaves together elements of the European avant-garde with the aesthetic and spiritual foundations of traditional Japanese culture: ‘I am searching for a new form of Japanese music, one in which I can remain true to myself and to my roots. Western culture plays an important role in this.’ In his compositions, he places particular emphasis on the process that sounds undergo: they come into being, exist briefly, and then fade away. For him, that disappearance is just as meaningful as the sounding itself.
In 2020, Hosokawa composed a concerto especially for the violinist Veronika Eberle, conceived as a gift to celebrate the birth of her son Maxime. He gave it the symbolic and telling title Genesis:
‘In the concerto, the soloist represents a human being, while the orchestra embodies nature and the universe that surround him. At the beginning, the orchestra repeats wave-like motions reminiscent of amniotic fluid; from the heart of this “cradle” emerges the melodic line of the solo violin (life), which then develops by imitating the orchestra’s melodies, breaking away from them, entering into conflict, and ultimately achieving harmony within the orchestra and dissolving into it.’
From setback to triumph
For any composer, writing a first symphony is a symbolic milestone. For Rachmaninov, the pressure was even greater following the death of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1893, as the public regarded him as Tchaikovsky’s natural successor. He laboured over his Symphony No. 1 for years, but its premiere in 1897 proved disastrous: the reportedly inebriated conductor Alexander Glazunov delivered a woeful performance, and the press dismissed the work as ‘an evocation of the seven plagues of Egypt’. Rachmaninov was left shattered. He sank into a deep depression and wrote not a single note for three years: ‘A paralyzing apathy took hold of me. I did absolutely nothing and found pleasure in nothing. I spent half my days lying on a couch. I had given up and was in utter despair.’
Seeking help, Rachmaninov turned to the neurologist Nikolai Dahl, who cured him of his compositional paralysis through hypnosis. In 1901, he ventured a Piano Concerto No. 2, and buoyed by its success, he began work on his Symphony No. 2 in October 1906. He had just moved with his family to the quiet cultural city of Dresden, seeking refuge from the looming revolution. Symphony No. 2 is a thoroughly Romantic work, in both form and character. Rachmaninov himself conducted the world premiere on 8 February 1908, and it was an unequivocal triumph: audiences and critics alike praised its lyrical melodies and their immediate appeal. That acclaim still resonates today – this monumental symphony remains one of Rachmaninov’s most frequently performed works.
