Kotona

by Tomi Räisänen

for Koto (13 strings) and String Quartet

Description

Kotona has three movements, all titled in Finnish and played 'attacca', seamlessly together. The first movement, Kotoisa (cosy), starts with a lullaby. From the first notes, one might hear an allusion to Finnish folk music with kantele playing. The second movement, Kotona (at home), refers to the pandemic times with disrupted social activity and dictated regulations to stay home indoors; cabin fever may rise, stress increases, and arguments flare when people spend too much time together. In this movement, the koto player moves the ji (koto's bridges) positions, and the harmonic situations change constantly, finally reaching a stable 'home position' at the end. In the following finale, Kotoa (from home), koto's bridges again start moving restlessly. As a last gesture, we can hear an extremely long glissando across the koto's whole range, maybe like a long trip from home to some distant destination. TR, 2023

Instrumentation

koto, 2vln, vla, vlc

Category

Chamber Works

Premiere

First performance on November 27, 2022, in Berlin by Naoko Kikuchi, koto, Wolfgang Bender, violin, Matthias Leupold, violin, Chang-Yun Yoo, viola & Uschik Choi, cello.

Movements

I. Kotoisa, II. Kotona, III. Kotoa

Commisioned by / dedications

Commissioned by AsianArt Ensemble. Dedicated to Naoko Kikuchi.

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Archive number

MF35279

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