Matsukaze

The two main characters are the lingering spirits of the sisters Matsukaze (Wind in the Pines) and Murasame (Autumn Rain), who in the 9th Century lived on the Bay of Suma in Settsu Province, where they ladled brine in order to make salt.

Matsukaze, after donning the courtly hunting robe and hat left to her by the courtier, mistakes a pine for her love, and Murasame joins her briefly in madness,[5] before recovering, passing on from the mortal world of emotional attachment, and leaving her sister behind.

Royall Tyler and other scholars attribute the bulk of the work to Zeami, claiming that it is based on a brief dance piece by his father Kan'ami.

Finally, Tyler offers the idea that the two women are aspects of a single psyche, or that they are "purified essences of human feeling... twin voices of the music of longing" [8] and not actually fully fleshed people.

It was commissioned by and first performed at Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels in 2011[9] It has been hailed as a triumph for contemporary opera and for the composer.