Yoshimatsu's "Threnody To Toki, for string orchestra and piano, Op. 12" was composed in 1980 to reflect the composer's concern for nature and world ecology. He particularly chose the plight and eventual extinction of the spectacular white bird with a large wing span and long beak called the toki, of which only two were alive in 1991.

The orchestra in fact is arranged in the shape of the bird (one is reminded of the Agni vedic ceremony held every 50 years in India in which a large bird is constructed from bricks, and similar celebrations in other cultures). The piano is the bird's body and the strings are the wings, the contrabasses are the tail (behind the piano).

At the opening, several gentle chords slowly crescendo while fleeting string harmonics sail in and around the texture. The chords become gorgeously dense, and the flying motions even more evocative. Throughout the work, we hear the cries of the bird as it struggles to regain flight that was once so natural and easy.

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