PADMA，for Guitar（2019）

I composed this piece in 2019 to a commission from the internationally renowned guitarist Shin-ichi Fukuda，to whom the work is dedicated. He provided me with much invaluable advice during the process of composition and has added his own detailed fingerings for publication of the score.
　　Padma is the Sanskrit term for the lotus flower，which in Buddhism is considered to represent the pledge of salvation. This solo piece is a fantasy or meditation on this word. While I was working on the piece I constantly kept in mind the luxuriant and sensuous tone of Fukuda’s guitar and his highly varied，profound and ethereal mode of expression. This is the background to the diverse soundscapes depicted in the work，performance of which requires sensuality，intoxication and a lyrical，joyous sense of prayer.
　　The work begins with meditatively swaying arpeggios that lead into a dolce cantabile section marked ‘mysterious’. This is followed by a fast，technically challenging passage，which leads in turn into the main section，Mantra，with its intimation of prayer and ritual. The main symbolic image in this section is that of the lotus flower (padma).
　　Having reached a climax in terms of sonority and movement the music builds up once again after passing through a section of translucent harmonics，representing purification，and the piece ends with an Adagio misterioso section，its final moments consisting of meditative sonorities that dissolve into mellifluous reverie.