The Sound of Silence: Yonejirō Noguchi (1875–1947), who wrote poetry in both Japanese and English and mediated between these cultures as an essayist, penned the following words in 1914: “Japanese poetry, at least its early variety, differs from Western poetry in the same way that the sound of silence differs from the sound of a voice. No explication can be given on the basis of Japanese literature. Those who cannot decipher from the poems what is not being said will never grasp them.” The things left unsaid are thus just as important as the things said.

Hosokawa rarely turns to analogies from early Japanese lyric poetry to explain his music. Far more often he refers to the tradition of calligraphy. He ‘paints’ his compositions on the background of stillness, a canvas of silence.

The Quatuor Diotima was founded by graduates of the Paris and Lyon Conservatories. They were awarded First Prize at the FNAPEC Competition, Paris (1999) and the Contemporary Music Prize at the London String Quartet Competition (2000), in which year, at the invitation of ProQuartet, they began a two-year residency at the Centre Européen de Musique de Chambre, Fontainebleau.