After compositions based on Japanese folk music and adaptations of composers such as Bach, Handel and Ives, Toshio Hosokawa - one of today’s leading Japanese composers - has now for the first time written around existing music.

Although the Baroque instruments (particularly the harpsichord and theorbo) formed a new aspect, he was able to build on his experience with traditional Japanese

instruments: “Early western and Japanese music seek the same tonal qualities, mild and strong, light and dark, and so it was not difficult to take this step. What was clear was that I had to go further than mere arrangement, which, by the way, I enjoy doing, for I learn much from original music. I could not touch Vivaldi’s notes, however. And so I entwined elements from his pieces in my prelude, intermezzos and postlude. I dreamed of a spot where the flowers (Vivaldi’s concertos) could blossom at their very finest. My work was that of a gardener, the creation of that musical background, as an exercise in ikebana.”