At Tamanoi 23rd, September, 2012
A little boat glides from the shore, carrying two musicians father and daughter, going out, drowsy on the glossy silk of the sea. Musical notes like little waves prelude from the strings of a guitar. When the girl begins to sing, her voice echoes across the bay over the mountains. Is this exquisite beauty human or is it a voice from the depths of the sea? The sound is laden with grief - that of the maiden Toyotama humiliated by Hikokohodeno-Mikoto. The sorrow of the sea, progenitor and guardian of mankind and which has accepted all of its impurities, now calls us into this sorrow. We tremble at human ingratitude before such great benevolence. My eyes brim with sea tears yearning for mother sea. The sea gleams and the boat circles through the light of the afternoon sun. This deep hush is broken by the song of birds. The waves lap against the three gates of the shrine and fish splash here and there. A puff of wind ruffles the surface of the sea joining voice and guitar: the moment when the gods, the world and humans were one. My daughter said that, next day, two fish swam all alongside our boat. A sudden remembrance.
Of the Maiden Amatsu
Awatsutome (lit.The Amatsu Maiden) is Keiko Fujiie's second composition on the theme of Tsushima Island, following her 2011 piece 'Suicho-Tsushimanoraku'. The work is inspired by the appearance of a divine sea at the gates of the Watazumi Shrine on Tsushima Island, as well as by the legend of 'The Maiden Toyotama'. The two chords alternate in sacred ratio, like waves breaking and receding endlessly - in fact two aspects of one chord - as ancient esoteric poetry and language that rises up and then vanishes. The listener may imagine the musicians on a little boat bathed in moonlight that shimmers on the waves.
Keiko Fujiie
translated by John Maher
© 2012 Keiko Fujiie
