Toshio Hosokawa (1955)

The Raven (2011)

monodrame pour mezzo-soprano et ensemble

  • Informations générales
    • Date de composition : 2011
    • Durée : 40 mn
    • Éditeur : Schott
    • Commande : the United Instruments of Lucilin (Luxembourg)
    • Livret (détail, auteur) :

      Edgar Allan Poe

Effectif détaillé
  • soliste : mezzo-soprano solo
  • flûte (aussi flûte alto, flûte piccolo, flûte basse), clarinette (aussi clarinette basse), saxophone ténor (aussi saxophone alto), trompette, trombone, percussionniste, piano, violon, violon II, alto, violoncelle, contrebasse

Information sur la création

  • Date : 17 mars 2012
    Lieu :

    Belgique, Bruxelles, La Raffinerie, Ars Musica 2012


    Interprètes :

    Charlotte Hellekant : mezzo-soprano, United Instruments of Lucilin, direction : Toshio Hosokawa.

Note de programme

When I read The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, it reminded me of the Japanese Noh play. A view of the world in the Noh is not anthropocentric. Some of the main characters in the Noh are animals and plants, and some are unearthly spirits. Poe describes the process of the collapse of the modern rational world, as a consequence of an invasion of the world by a weird animal ‘raven’ which lives in the other world. I considered this poem as a story of Noh and expressed it in the form of monodrama with mezzo-soprano and ensemble. 

Toshio Hosokawa.