Hosokawa: Awakening (SACD)

This recording presents the complete guitar works to date of Toshio Hosokawa, one of Japan's most prolific composers for the instrument. His affinity with the guitar stems from his familiarity with popular songs accompanied by the guitar and his knowledge of the koto, a traditional Japanese instrument from which he has adopted certain playing techniques. Although the works collected here require a variety of forces - guitar solo, guitar and voice, guitar and instrumental ensemble - they all represent a fundamental aspect of Toshio Hosokawa's work: The music seems to be born like a calligraphic line "on the border of time and space". Here the guitar is no longer just an instrument familiar to both classical and popular music: In Hosokawa's works, it is a medium that transmits the original movement of the soul, which has been weaving poems and songs since ancient times. Together with Christian Karlsen (with whom he has already recorded works by Tōru Takemitsu on BIS-2655), the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and soprano Ilse Eerens, guitarist Jacob Kellermann, who is familiar with Hosokawa's world, presents a soundscape on the edge of dreams, seductive and subtle, modern and timeless at the same time.