O Hototogisu!

This exquisite “fragment of a Japonisme”—premiered in 2017 and conceived as a kind of double concerto for soprano, flute, and ensemble of 23 players—O Hototogisu! has proven to be Oliver Knussen’s final work. The eight-minute piece couches seven exquisite haiku settings in richly evocative music, which incorporates signals from Japanese theater (particularly Kabuki). It concerns the Hototogisu (or Lesser Cuckoo), a bird widely invoked in Japanese haiku poetry of the 17th to 19th centuries, in which the poet listens for its arrival from the mountains both as a harbinger of summer and a voice from the land of the dead. Composed for soprano, flute, and full orchestra.