Toshio Hosokawas Oratorium Sternlose Nacht
Toshio Hosokawa's Oratorio Starless Night

Summary/Abstract: Toshio Hosokawa is a contemporary Japanese composer (born 1955) with a clear sense of responsibility to the spiritual and musical traditions of his heritage, but at the same time he is a European avant-garde composer on equal footing with his most influential European peers. The article describes the genesis and structural innovations of a new composition of Hosokawa which was premiered on October 2nd by Kent Nagano and the Mahler Chamber Orchester in Baden-Baden, Germany: Sternlose Nacht (Starless Night) for two Sopranos, Speakers, Choir and Orchestra. This Oratorio is composed to commemorate the victims of the air attacks on the city of Dresden in February 1945 and the victims of the atom bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945. The compositional idea is to represent the natural cycle of seasons which is dramatically interrupted by human hatred and cruelty.

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