program note I have often associated the word concerto with the notion of confrontation, as in the pitting of soloist against orchestra. This confrontation is not only a physical presence on stage but, more importantly, a conceptual idea permeating the very being of the concerto on all levels, from the formal to the textural. Not…
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PROGRAM NOTE Like many composers throughout the history of music, I consider my relationships with certain performers to be among the special treasures of my existence. Of these, my association with members of New York’s Da Capo Chamber Players, individually and as a group, has been especially rewarding and happy in a great many ways. Mirage is…
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PROGRAM NOTE Love’s Call (2016) is a setting for voice and piano of an English adaptation of a fragment from the Song of Songs. I extracted it from the libretto by Charles Kondek of my opera Between Two Worlds (The Dybbuk). The subtle adaptation/rearranging by Kondek of this deeply passionate, iconic Old Testament text creates…
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PROGRAM NOTE My second string quartet, “Vistas,” is a work cast in a traditional four-movement formal mold, with the outer movements, presenting and later returning to the work’s principal musical materials, surrounding a slow movement and a scherzo-type third movement. While the four movements’ “proper” names — Maestoso con forza, Lento, Scherzo impetuoso, and Introduzione;…
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PROGRAM NOTE The Mendelssohn String Quartet’s invitation to compose a work for the group has presented a tremendous challenge for me. The string quartet, after all, is not merely an instrumental combination of two violins, viola and cello: it is a genre. For any composer undertaking the composition of a work in this medium, the…
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PROGRAM NOTE “Song and Dance” began its life as a nascent melody in the late eighties, employing a similar motivic cell as did three of my works written over a period of several years—East Wind, String Quartet No. 2 (Vistas), and Mirage. At the core of these three works is the simplest of melodic kernels:…
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PROGRAM NOTE The Sonatina for two flutes was written in Tel Aviv, Israel, and represents an important moment in my life. Having begun composing at the age of seven, all my early creations involved either the piano or the human voice—singing or narrating—and thus could be realized in performance by me alone. When I was…
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PROGRAM NOTE SOLILOQUY, a single-movement work of approximately 8 minutes, is an adaptation for violin, cello and piano of YEARNING, a work for violin and string orchestra composed for violinist Edna Michell and the late Lord Yehudi Menhuin in 1995. The adaptation was done in 1997 for the Peabody Trio, whose members have since performed…
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PROGRAM NOTES The title Fantasy Pieces, unlike Fantasia, is often associated with fairly short, whimsical, probably charming, and in general “diminutive” pieces of music. One case in point is Schumann’s lovely Fantasy Pieces for cello and piano. In that sense, the title of my work may be slightly misleading, for it is composed of three…
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