Haiku

The traditional Japanese haiku delivers a powerful expressive impact despite its rigorous form and style. In this suite, a single haiku is the title for each movement. The music reflects the nature of the poem, capturing a moment, which is the essence of “haiku.”

1. "From the Mountain’s snow
     the stags slowly coming down
     into the valley"

Deep, slowly mounting arpeggios in the piano, evoke the sleeping, majesty of the mountains. As the stags pick their way down the treacherous slopes, one can perhaps here the sounds of rocks and snow falling in their wake.

2. "A little grey mouse
     boldy running down the street
     jumping puddles"

A little grey mouse dashing along a city street, boldly making his way through a larger world that is oblivious to him. Running, jumping, ducking, dodging, or even falling in a puddle, his is a life of invisible adventure.

3. "Against the dark shore
     the murmuring of the sea
     a secret language"

The sea murmurs to itself in its own secret language of waves at the shore and movements in the deep. The repeated ostinato and minimalistically developed accompaniment suggest the ageless, inexorable motion of the waters.

The music of Haiku and the poems that inspired it are united in that they reveal a world that exists out of our view. A world of magic, beauty and danger, that has its own secrets and cannot truly be known, only experienced.