This piece is the fulfillment of a long-held aspiration rooted in a work I composed in 2011 titled Tarantella (unpublished), which I submitted for the 22nd Asahi Composition Award. Although Tarantella made it to the final selection round, it was not awarded the prize nor selected as a test piece. Nevertheless, I had a strong attachment to the piece - unusual for one of my own works - and I vividly remember the frustration I felt. That experience left me with a clear goal: "Someday, I want to win the Asahi Composition Award with a piece bearing the name of a dance."
Surprisingly, that wish came true the very next year. I was awarded the 23rd Asahi Composition Award, and my piece Mazurka was selected as the test piece (I) for the 2013 All Japan Band Competition.
Even after that, however, I continued to carry a strong desire to one day revisit the theme of the Tarantella in a new wind band piece. That long-standing wish came to fruition when I received a commission from the Tokyo Ryusei Wind Orchestra, resulting in the creation of this work, Danzare la tarantella.
The Tarantella is a rapid dance in 6/8 or 3/8 time, believed to have originated around Taranto in southern Italy. It's said that the frenzied movements of the dance served as a cure for the bite of the tarantula spider, known for its venom - hence the dance's urgent, feverish rhythm. It gradually leads the listener into an almost trance-like ecstasy. (Incidentally, the inspiration for my 2011 Tarantella came from the final movement, Saltarello, of Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 "Italian" - a piece that is musically very close to a tarantella.)
The piece opens lyrically and gradually intensifies with recitative-like solos for oboe and flute, building to a climax marked by rich, resonant brass before launching suddenly into the tarantella proper. In this section, I placed a fanfare motif - originally heard in Debussy's Nocturnes: Fêtes - as a musical homage, just as I did in my 2011 Tarantella. In the slower, menuet-style middle section, the English horn delivers a passionate, expressive solo.
Dance forms in classical music often serve as reflections of human emotion, where feelings are expressed through physical movement. As such, I feel it tends to unfold over particular rhythmic patterns, projecting a wide range of emotional states - joy, anger, sorrow, pleasure, intense passion and at times, even moments of psychological unrest. Though it may sound exaggerated, I personally believe that the very origins of art - including music - can be found in this expression of human emotion through movement.
Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and respect to the Tokyo Ryusei Wind Orchestra for their passionate and powerful premiere of this work - following up their superb performance of my previous piece La mer - Réminiscence de Claude Debussy. I am especially thankful to Maestro Takao Hatakeda, music director of the Wind Orchestra, for his deep understanding of the piece and for his leadership in guiding both the orchestra and the music.

(Kei Misawa)