I wrote Hanjo as if it were a dream. The leading role of Hanako lives in a world of madness beyond our everyday reality. She waits a long time for the man she loves to come back. When he finally arrives, however, for her he is no longer the man she loves. Her fantasy image of the man has become more real than the actual man in front of her. I wanted to depict through music a drama which travels back and forth across the border between dream and reality, between madness and sanity. Perhaps a person can hear the voice that can only be heard in the realm of dreams more deeply in music than in drama. I tried to depict the voice of a person who travels back and forth this way between dream and reality, the orchestra in the background slowly changing its appearance like an unrolling picture scroll. Into that picture scroll, silence is gradually but strongly woven, just as blank space is strongly woven into the middle of a picture. There are times when dreams possess a strong reality. And perhaps that reality can also paint a powerful picture of the truth of the reality in which we live. Neither the instruments nor singing techniques of Nô are used in this music. I do not want to create music which copies the outer form of Japanese traditional music and makes it into an exotic arrangement in modern style. Instead I want to make the essence of Nô music live again in completely different form. It is music which generates silence (what in Japanese can also be called ma, or "pause"); after which, sound, while slowly circling the borderline of silence, travels into the realm of dreams.