Interview
Toshio Hosokawa on his career and the images in his music Simon Rattle conducts Haydn, Schubert and Hosokawa
With Haydn’s Symphony No. 99 and Schubert’s Great C major Symphony, we can follow the both tonally beautiful yet dramatic path from the First Viennese School to Romanticism. Toshio Hosokawa’s Horn Concerto, on the other hand – given its premiere here – is a work of our time. However, it is still infused with delicate echos of Romantic music. Sir Simon Rattle conducts, and the soloist is Stefan Dohr, principal horn with the Philharmoniker.
Symphonies and concertos are among genres which follow apparently unalterable models, where themes and keys form a musical architecture based on strict rules. This concert with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle shows that this doesn’t have to be the case.
He once described Haydn’s approach to the symphonic form as, “a wonderful mixture of the joy of playing and of surprise. As a conductor, you try to take charge of it, but then suddenly you find it has taken you unawares yet again. For audiences too, it is both a witty and uncommonly intelligent experience to enter this maze.” Schubert’s final symphony is also rich in unexpected surprises, but here, the effect is less humorously intended. When a theme or the musical structure disintegrates, when idyllic scenes descend crashing into catastrophe, Schubert mercilessly reflects the fragility of human life.
Hiroshima-born Toshio Hosokawa also finds a way to bring a new perspective to a handed-down compositional form. Moment of Blossoming is the subtitle of his new horn concerto – a reference to the mythically revered lotus flower of Hosokawa’s homeland, with a musical depiction of the flower blossoming in a lake. The soloist and dedicatee of this work is Stefan Dohr, solo horn player with the Berliner Philharmoniker since 1993.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Sir Simon Rattle
Stefan Dohr
© 2011 Berlin Phil Media GmbH
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