MEDITATION KARUNA FOR STRINGS（2012）

I composed this work between February and April 2012 in response to a commission from Yamagata Symphony Orchestra to celebrate the orchestra’s fortieth anniversary. Following on from Sakurabito for orchestra，this is the second work I composed in my role as composer-in-residence of this orchestra. This is the work I have composed for an orchestra without recourse to either winds or percussion，and it set me the challenge of exploring to the limit of my abilities the expressive range and potential of the string ensemble. I began by drawing up a plan that involved coming to terms with and reassessing the musical language of the string ensemble，in the course of which I acquired a creative image consisting of the four radically different musical ideas that came to constitute the thematic exposition with which the work begins，as follows:
1) The violas play an impassioned melody enveloped by intertwining，indistinctly wiggling metallic tremolos on the violins and cellos.
2) Monodies in an East Asian manner combining passionately in canon and at different tempi.
3) The sudden appearance of fugato fragments at an allegro tempo. (This fugato suddenly welled up in my imagination in association with a specific place，namely Ueno Station in Tokyo，and I found it impossible to get this image out of my mind. This was a somewhat weird experience.)
4) A simple，expressive melodic line played in the upper register.

These musical concepts might be thought of as symbolising four ineffable emotions that we experience in our lives. String ensembles possess a mysterious expressive power not restricted to melodic expression that comes about as a result of their diverse，subtle tone coloration and texture and the wide variety of attacks and ways in which sounds can be held. I sense the distinctive potential they possess to provide a musical，acoustic portrayal of emotions intimately linked to the workings of the human psyche. The piece as a whole lasts around twelve minutes and consists of the transformation，development and fusion of the four musical concepts presented during the first two or so minutes. The stormy changes within the piece notwithstanding，use of the word ‘meditation’ in the title is bound up with another concept present within the title，namely the Buddhist ideal which I hold in high regard known in Sanskrit as karun?，denoting mercy and compassion as manifest in the wish that others be free from the suffering that is the lot of all sentient beings. The variations and waves of emotion that appear in the piece are founded in a type of meditation on life and death overlaid by my own personal experience and feelings about karun?.
A verbal commentary on this work may well give the impression that it is highly abstruse，but，leaving aside the question of performance difficulties，I feel that in reality it on the whole expresses itself directly and sometimes indeed simply and frankly. It ends on an almost inaudible low F in the violas bearing the expressive marking con tristezza.