Jo Kondo: Chamber Music

Beautiful intimate chamber music, a little on the abstract side, and deeply poetic.

1 Walk (1976)
2 An Elder's Hocket (1979)
3 Pendulums (1990)
4 Aquarelle (1990)
5 Winsen Dance Step (1995)
6 Duo (1982)
7 Words (1986)
8 An Insular Style (1980)

Ensemble L'Art Pour L'Art:

Matthias Kaul - percussion

Hartmut Leistritz - piano

Nele B. Nelle - clarinet

Eva Pressl - harp

Astrid Schmeling - flute

Michael Schröder - guitar, conductor

Jo Kondo, in his liner notes:The eight pieces recorded here have been written over a span of 20 years, from 1976 to 1995. Being as they are small in scale, they might not be considered the most representative among my works, but can serve to show the main characteristics of my compositional style, both in its consistency and variety. Be that what it may, my attitude as a composer shies away from any kind of monumentalism, bent on achieving grandiose accomplishments by writing only big scale works.

My compositional style in the seventies was based to a large extent on what I called "Sen no ongaku" ("linear music"), a music composed in such a way that the whole structure derives from a single melodic line. And I found that the hocket-like timbral shifting among the ensemble members was a very useful technique for that style of composing.

...
The only piece on this CD not meant for a chamber ensemble is "Pendulums", for solo percussion... However, although written to be performed by only one player, this work qualifies as chamber music, since it is not soloistic in the conventional sense. The solist has to play an "ensemble", so to speak, of marimba, vibraphone, steel drum, six cow bells, two bongos, tom tom, and bass drum. 


... a few months before "Pendulum", I wrote "Aquarelle", a duo for percussion and piano. ... In this composition my primary concern was to point out both the subtle differences and similarities between the timbral qualities of vibraphone and piano. For that purpose I treated both instruments alternately, creating between them a very slow rocking rhythm.

"Winsen Dance Step", a trio for flute, guitar and vibraphone ... represents my latest way of writing for chamber ensemble. This is an extension of the "Sen no ongaku" style, with increased complexity in texture, sonority and rhythmic structure, but retaining somehow the simplicity found in the original style of the seventies. ... Characterized by an ever changing meter and very irregular rhythm, this work is certainly not a dance, but an abstract piece of music with the added connotation that rhythmic music always inherits something from the inner nature of dance.

... I am interested in words more than in sentences, in sentences more than in paragraphs, in paragraphs more than in a whole page. Thus, it could be said that in music I am more concerned with each sound than with the phrases they create. ...


After several months of quiet life in Vancouver Island, I came back in 1980 to my home island, Japan, and wrote "An Insular Style" ... This piece also shares the linear character of many of my compositions, written almost entirely as a single, continuous melodic line... But at the same time, this piece can be considered rather exceptional (...) due to the following two points: 1) The melody line is more clearly articulated and less abstract than in most of my works. Its melodic contour or phrase structure appears to be closer to conventional melodic writing, and therefore more accessible to the listener. 2) Harmony, although not supporting the melody line in a traditional sense, but just "shadowing" that line to give it some coloring, is more unambiguously tonal than usual. Altogether, "An Insular Style" may sound much like a folk tune from an (imaginary) island.

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