A work by Noriko Koide
Swaddling Silk and Gossamer Rain
about 12 minutes
Program notes
About the Work
Receiving its Dutch premiere tonight, Swaddling Silk and Gossamer Rain is a recent orchestral work (2022) by the Japanese composer Noriko Koide, commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and first performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Japan. Its exquisite, tactile title is a clue to its character: this is music of fine textures and delicate threads, concerned above all with the quality and colour of sound itself. Koide is steeped both in the refined aesthetics of contemporary Japanese music (she studied with Toshio Hosokawa) and in the shimmering, interlocking sonorities of the Javanese gamelan, and both worlds can be felt in her orchestral writing.
The piece, lasting around twelve minutes, unfolds with great patience. As one description puts it, ‘a dynamic slowly develops from recumbent sounds’, with Koide using big musical gestures sparingly so that small changes register with great intensity. Placed between the grandeur of Beethoven and the warmth of Elgar, it offers a completely different listening experience: an invitation to attend closely to the surface and texture of orchestral sound, to the way music can be woven from the most gossamer-fine materials.
What to Listen For
Approach this one with patient, open ears: rather than tunes and dramatic argument, listen for texture, colour and the slow transformation of sound. Koide builds from quiet, ‘recumbent’ sonorities, and the rewards lie in noticing how delicately the orchestral fabric is woven: threads of sound emerging, overlapping and dissolving, like silk and fine rain.
Listen for the influence of the gamelan in the shimmering, finely layered textures, and for Koide’s restraint: because she uses large gestures so sparingly, every swell, every change of colour, every emergence of a clearer line carries real weight. Let the music slow your listening down. This is a piece to be absorbed as an evolving soundscape, fragile and detailed, a contemporary voice freshening the ear between two beloved classics.
Upcoming performances & concert guides
Past guides
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Bronfman’s ‘Emperor’, and Elgar’s Enigma Beethoven · Koide · Elgar
Each concert’s guide adds notes on that evening’s performers and the rest of the programme.
Sources 3
- UK Premiere of Noriko Koide’s Swaddling Silk and Gossamer Rain at the BBC Proms, European American Music Distributors (Schott Music Group)
- The New York Philharmonic, led by Elim Chan, Performs the New York Premiere of Noriko Koide’s Swaddling Silk and Gossamer Rain, European American Music Distributors (Schott Music Group)
- Noriko Koide: Biography, Schott Music Japan