Dai Fujikura: Ampere

The piece has the feeling of a multi-movement work and in the middle section the tempo eases and the textures thin though the piano writing still has its jagged elements. Much of the writing is bravura, albeit not in a conventional fashion, and Ogawa is quite brilliant in her performance. The more virtuoso sections develop a positively orgiastic feel to them in a wonderful moment, before things calm down. The ending is quiet and intense rather than the big finish. For the finale the composer further extends the soundworld of the piece by concentrating on a few solo instruments in the orchestra and incorporating a glass harmonica and a toy piano whose sounding pieces are made of glass. The results are simply magical, and Ogawa, the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra and Thierry Fischer are on fine form throughout.

Fluid Calligraphy (2010) is an attempt to explore the idea of calligraphy using a solo violinist, with the phrasing and accents deliberately not following the arc of the melodic line. The violin writing is rather eerie, full of high notes, harmonics, slides and other effects. The playing from Barbara Luneburg is stupendous. The overall sound is quite edgy, and the work has an uneasy quality. Despite the scurryings of notes there is a certain austere quality of the piece.

The orchestral work Stream State (2005) was commissioned for the Lucerne Festival Academy, founder Pierre Boulez. Instead of using the orchestra conventionally, Fujikura re-organises them into three groups, each with their own personality with the central group producing high-pitched chords and the outer two groups swapping pizzicatos. This was recorded live in 2005 as part of the Lucerne Festival, with Pierre Boulez conducting the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra.

It is a work that, at first, seems to be wholly about texture with the sustain string textures interrupted by others full of pizzicato and fidgety scurrying. The whole has a magical effect, but underneath there is tension, excitement builds and you sense and underlying drama.

Poyopoyo is written for solo horn but at times the sound world Fujikura seems to be exploring is closer to the trombone. The work is muted and quiet, intriguing and discreet. All Fujikura's writing seems to explore the limits of the possible in his chosen instruments, here we don't have something virtuoso but instead quite the opposite. The work explores the limits of quiet intensity, gradually moving towards more extended playing techniques. And the playing from Nobuaki Fukukawa shows stunning control.

Perla (2003/2008) is for bass recorder, a work which explores a very modern side to the instrument.  Again we are using extended playing techniques, including over-blowing, which has the result of making the instrument sound anything but the traditional renaissance and baroque stand-by. Fujikura also works in fragments which sound South American, perhaps reflecting the recorder's links to South American folk instruments. Recorder player Inbar Solomon offers superb control and playing

My Butterflies is for wind orchestra, and was inspired by the sensations Dai Fujikura's wife felt during the first weeks of pregnancy. The work was co-commissioned by the DePaul University School of Music. Again Fujikura's writing intrigues and tantalises, as you struggle to work out quite what you are listening to. There is an intriguing mix of textures, with a lot of flutter tonguing. But there is a spaciousness to the writing, you sense that quite a few instruments are being used sparingly.

In all these pieces you sense Fujikura de-constructing his chosen instrument (or instruments) and pushing their techniques to the limit, recombining in new and striking ways. His writing have a very textural quality and I am unsurprised to read of the visual side to his inspiration. The piece here are demanding, both of performers and listeners. Performers on this disc are all stunning, giving performances which command attention from the listener. And it is an attention which is well rewarded.

Balancing the larger-scale works are three pieces for solo instruments. The balletic grace of Fluid Calligraphy is painted in ethereal arabesques in an exploration of the full range of harmonics on a solo violin. In Poyopoyo, the solo French horn almost attains the state of being able to speak, in the fluttering, muted survey of its articulatory possibilities. For anyone familiar with the talking trombone of the teacher in those Charlie Brown cartoons from the seventies, this is a more refined, introspective version – the schoolteacher caught alone, in a reflective soliloquy. There’s mischief here too, though, with laughter often bubbling to the surface. The natural state of the horn’s soundworld is refashioned, like plasticine, handled like something ‘soft and squidgy’ (as the title translates) and moulded into something much more articulate. The solo instrument really is speaking its own language, if only we could just catch the words – the piece is beautifully executed with superb control in this recording by Nobuaki Fukukawa. Perla is a slow, often sensuous exploration of the expressive power of the bass recorder, employing flutter-tonguing and overblowing techniques as the instrument lurks lonely beneath the moonlight.

The gentle, diaphanous opening of the final piece on the disc, my butterflies, evokes an iridescent heat-haze; the texture gradually opens out, embracing muted brass chords, building to the first sustained vertical sonorities and a moment of release. Fujikura demonstrates (as elsewhere on this disc) his extraordinary ear for texture, for instrumentation that works to enhance as well as to draw out distinct differences between families of instruments.  An oboe and bassoon melody moves in slow, measured steps, underpinned by a sustained chord in the distance, leading to a sedate and serenely noble conclusion, reminiscent of Stravinsky. Of all the pieces on the disc, this is perhaps the most lyrical, the most expressive, permeated throughout by a hushed expectation – a reflection in part, maybe, of the initial inspiration for the work, Fujikura’s wife in the early stages of pregnancy.

Coming away from the disc, you are left with a sense that your ears have been opened to the experience of sound anew; Fujikura’s music, in its tightly-controlled expressive means allied with a wonderfully articulate textural language, opens the doors to sound in a manner which makes you listen with a renewed inquisitive sense. For all its surface-level industry and constant exploration of textural possibilities afforded by the instrument(s) for which the composer is writing, there emerges an overall unity of vision, a singular concept from Fujikura’s music; that of being enchanted by sound, of being enthralled by the sonic landscapes through which the music moves. The works on this new disc show his handling of instrumental forces continuing to broaden and mature, in his continuing investigation into new aural possibilities.