Momo Kodama DEBUSSY - HOSOKAWA Point and Line

Born in Osaka, educated at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, Momo Kodama is well-placed to approach music from both Eastern and Western vantage points, as she does in this album which interweaves etudes of Claude Debussy (1862-1918) and Toshio Hosokawa (born 1955). Both composers have similarly been border-crossers. Debussy, pointing to music of the future, looked to the Orient for inspiration. Hosokawa has combined aspects of Japanese and European tradition in his contemporary compositions. Momo Kodama: “In the music of Toshio Hosokawa I find elements close to Debussy: the freedom of form and tone colour, the sense of poetic design, with a wide range of lyricism and dynamics, between meditation and virtuoso development, between light and shade, between large gestures and minimalist refinement.”
Point and Line is the pianist’s second ECM album and follows the widely-praised La vallée des cloches, with music of Ravel, Takemitsu and Messiaen, of which American Record Guide noted. “Kodama’s impeccable technique and facility for crystalline sounds makes for a mesmerizing program. “ (ECM Records) 

Point and Line is the pianist’s second ECM album and follows the widely-praised La vallée des cloches, with music of Ravel, Takemitsu and Messiaen, of which American Record Guide noted. “Kodama’s impeccable technique and facility for crystalline sounds makes for a mesmerizing program.

“The album is called ‘Point and Line’ after one of the Hosokawa studies, but that name also hints at the cool definition of Kodama’s playing. Her touch is immaculate and diligent, neatly flamboyant in the Debussy and reassuringly robust in the Hosokawa. She writes that both composers are ‘between meditation and virtuoso development, between light and shade, between large gestures and minimalist refinement’ – and it’s those places in between that make her interpretations interesting. (Kate Molleson / The Guardian) 

Japanese pianist Momo Kodama reaches halfway around the world and across a century of time to bring together the 12 late études of Debussy and six études written between 2011 and 2013 by her countryman, Toshio Hosokawa. […] Kodama eschews chronology and interweaves the pieces into a sometimes boundary-blurring sequence that trades on the cross-fertilisation between French and Japanese composers. Her performing style in the Debussy also tends to downplay the pieces’ étude-like nature. A fascinating collection. (Michael Dervan / The Irish Times)