‘Not often does a counter-tenor get to sing with a symphony orchestra. But when that happens in future, Jonathan Dove’s Hojoki (AnAccount of My Hut) should be high on the list of repertoire choices. Evocative and poignant, this 25-minute piece is like one of those 18th-century cantatas designed to show off the expressive potential of a solo voice in many different moods.
The moods are supplied by the text: Donald Keene’s English translation of a chronicle written by Kamo no Chomei, a medieval Japanese poet and monk. It vividly describes how 13th-century Kyoto was ravaged by fire, whirlwind, famine and earthquake. Then the poet discusses his own renunciation of earthly concerns in preparation for a holy death. It’s a man coming to terms with his own, and mankind’s, fragility.
Dove sets this prose extract imaginatively and expertly, not least in ensuring that the counter-tenor is never swamped by the pictorial effects — terrifying, sombre, thrilling, ethereal — in the orchestra.The language is accessible: shades of Stravinsky, Debussy, Britten andTippett, mingled with minimalist techniques. Yet the expressiveness feels new-minted, right to the final pages, where Dove whittles down the orchestra to wispy flute and harp phrases in an other-worldly oriental mode.'
Richard Morrison, The Times, 3 October 2006
- ISMN: 9790577002972 (M577002972)
- Product code: EP7822A
