Flot Suspendu (Suspended Flow) by Véronique Piron (review)

Flot Suspendu, the fourth solo album from shakuhachi performer and teacher Véronique Piron, is comprised of a mix of honkyoku (premodern solo pieces typically associated with meditative practice) and Piron's original compositions. It is a rare recording by a female artist in the male-dominated world of the shakuhachi, and the works presented are the result of a substantial engagement with the instrument's traditional literature. Piron's approach to writing is simultaneously historically grounded and fundamentally contemporary, showcasing expert classical technique and a structural application of mixing and overdubbing. Flot Suspendu makes a statement about the place of honkyoku in the contemporary shakuhachi world and demonstrates the value in composition of understanding not only an instrument's physical capabilities but its historical canon and stylistic conventions.

The shakuhachi is one of Japan's most well-known traditional instruments, and its versatility, portability, and connection to Buddhism have contributed to its widespread growth outside of Japan. Piron began her studies in France in 1992 with renowned shakuhachi teacher Yoshikazu Iwamoto. As the recipient of a French ministry of foreign affairs Lavoisier Scholarship, she studied at the International Shakuhachi Kenshukan in Japan from 2000 to 2002; there she developed her understanding of both shakuhachi solo literature and jiuta-sokyoku (shakuhachi accompaniments to koto and shamisen chamber music) with Furuya Teruo, Sato Kikuko, and founder Yokoyama Katsuya, ultimately attaining a shihan (master) license through the organization. This pedagogical lineage has influenced the particular selections of honkyoku on the album, chosen from the Fuke and Kinko-style canons. "Shingetsu" (Heart moon), "Daha" (Breaking waves), "Reibo" (Yearning for the bell),¹ "Kuyō no Kyoku" (Ceremony), and "Mukaiji" (Flute in the ocean mist) represent the classical selections on the album. In addition, the opening track, "Passage," is an excerpt from the final track, "Mukaiji," with overlaid nature sounds provided by the CD's audio engineer, Gérard Lhomme.

In Edo-period Japan (1603–1868), the shakuhachi was primarily a religious instrument, with the honkyoku functioning as objects of meditation and as a means of collecting alms. Despite religious proscriptions, evidence exists of collaborations between koto and shakuhachi musicians as early as the eighteenth century, but it was the disbanding of the Fuke sect in the early Meiji period (1868–1912) that accelerated the shakuhachi's reimagining as a primarily secular concert instrument. Changing social norms touched every aspect of Japanese life but had a particularly profound effect on music and other performing arts. Philip Flavin (2012) has detailed the ways in which jiuta-sokyoku composers and performers skillfully navigated this transition, using the koto's historical associations with nobility and the classical-poetry-based, secular-but-not-vulgar nature of its canon to reimagine it as the Japanese instrument most closely aligned with European artistic ideals. In this context, joining the rising tide of the koto was a natural choice for many shakuhachi players, and it helped to cement the shakuhachi's current position within the art music world. A large body of contemporary works exists for the shakuhachi, and it was one of the two Japanese solo instruments selected by Takemitsu Toru for his groundbreaking November Steps concerto (premiered by Piron's teacher Yokoyama). The necessity for expanded range and chromatic ability in this context has led to the widespread use of shakuhachi with varying lengths and number of finger holes, and in twenty-first-century Japan, where the primary audience for premodern Japanese music is rapidly aging, shakuhachi players face ever-greater demands to be able to perform alongside Western instruments in a Euro-American idiom.

The extent to which honkyoku should be programmed and performed is thus the subject of divided opinions within the world of hōgaku (in this context, "traditional Japanese art music"). Some groups, such as the pop-styled Wagakki Band and a growing number...