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This is a Modern piece . This piece was composed for koto by Nishimura Akira in 1987 .

Stratums of Times appears on the following albums:

Album	Shakuhachi	Koto	Shamisen
Iris of Time  (Listen)		Sawai Tadao
IRIS OF TIME (1987) -Heterophony for Seven Kotos and Three Jyushichigen-Kotos by seven kotos (Japanese zithers) including one solo, and three 17-string kotos including one solo I composed this commissioned by the Japan Arts Council(a producer Mr. Naoji Yamakawa) in the spring, 1987. From the first I imagined SAWAI KOTO ENSEMBLE in composing, and it resulted in a composition in which I try a heterophony woven by many layers of time streams kept in my mind since several years ago. The composition consists of following two parts. I. Stratums of Times I have tried to put some neighboring time Streams in parallel, and express a sway of folded time layers as a whole. A delicate rhythm lag which I call "micro-polyrhythm" is performed, folded in many layers. In tuning, a pile of perfect fifth presented by the solo koto at the beginning makes a backbone of mode of all instruments, whose intervals are to be filled up by seven partial modes distributed to each instrument. A big cadenza by both soloists is put at the latter part.