A Poem of the Rain

雨の詩: ２１絃箏ソロ (21-string koto solo)

木村玲子氏による委嘱作品で、CD Music for Koto by Reiko Kimura (Celestial Harmonies, USA) に収録されている。この曲は、閔妃へのレクイエムを箏独奏によって表現している。「雨」は自然の雨の意味だけではなく、歴史の痛みへの涙といった意味も含み、「雨」を想起させる音楽的表現が、中心的なモチーフとして使われている。

“I had planned to write a work on the theme of Min–pi (1851–95), one of the last Empresses of the Korean Yi Dynasty, who was brutally executed by the Japanese military during their ‘colonization’ of Korea. When KIMURA Reiko asked me to write a piece for her, I made the decision to write a piece expressing my feelings for this tragic woman, as the core of something that can be extended in to the future, and Ame no Uta was the result. Perhaps it can be called a requiem for a woman by a woman.

What I sought in this piece was quietness rather than intense appeal, a translucent musicality rather than passionate sound. The word ame (rain) expressions not only the beautiful natural phenomenon that this word means literally, but also the tears that Min–pi shed, or rather was forced to shed. I hope that my prayers for Min–pi, as expressed in the tones of the nijûgen, find their ways into the listeners’ hearts.”

With its thematic transformations of its opening motif unabashed use of the diatonic scale in various modal forms, this piece demonstrates both the the composers’ link to her teacher, Miki, and her player’s knowledge of the expressive possibilities of the instrument.” (excerpted from CD liner notes by Steven G. Nelson)