Output details

Tsuyo no yo (2011) (soprano, sho, koto, string trio)

This work is one of a number of pieces by Watkins inspired by traditional Japanese haiku, and bringing together Western and traditional Japanese compositional techniques and instruments (in this case sho and koto).

The piece is an exploration of Issa’s famous haiku, tsuyu no yo wa tsuyu no yo nagara sari nagara (this world / is a dewdrop world / yes... but...) -- written, supposedly, upon the death of a child. The work explores the haiku’s extraordinary internal structures and rhythms, its apparent contradiction, and the semantic richness of the words themselves. The tension between the implicit acceptance of the world’s impermanence, as captured in the familiar phrase tsuyu no yo, and the regret captured in the “and yet” of nagari sari nagari is the principal motivation behind the piece.

The words of the above haiku, however, are never set in their entirety in tsuyu no yo, and are only pointed to, or referenced, in fragments distributed throughout the piece. Instead, the soprano is given just four of Issa’s literally dozens of haiku on dewdrops (tsuyu) which in their chosen succession dictate the shape and direction of the piece, and reflect different aspects of the original haiku.

Tsuyu no yo was commissioned by Shonorities Ensemble, and first performed by them at Sogakudo Hall, Tokyo on 23 January 2011, as part of a collaborative research project supported by the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, and hosted by Tokyo University of Music and the Arts.