About the creation

The Semitic Suite is one of the original works of the East Mediterranean Style in Israeli art music. Boskovich distilled this style after a period of intensive research, and wrote the Semitic Suite’s core versions – for orchestra and for piano solo – in 1945/6. During the 1950s, he added the versions for two pianos (1954) and piano four-hands (1957) and revised the first two versions(1958/9 ) These revisions include changes in the number of movements, phrase structure, texture and rhythmic patterns, while retaining the work’s specific style and character. The work consists of the following movements: 1. Prelude – Toccata - in the style of a taqsim – an improvised piece, prelude or interlude in Arab music; 2. Meditation – lyric and poetic in character; this movement is included in the orchestral and piano-solo versions only; 3. Amamiyah – a folk-style dance; 4. Nofiyah – a pastoral 5. Toccatina – this movement is included in the orchestral, piano-solo and two-pianos version; 6. Hodaya (Praise) – a festive and jubilant rondo. The eastern sonorities of this music arise from the following features: 1. A mixture of different modes and maqam patterns, often sharing a common tonal center; 2. Short melodic patterns recurring in variations; 3. The predominance of seconds, fourths, fifths and sevenths; 4. The enrichment of the texture with bourdons, chromatic alterations, ornamented heterophony and unisono patterns; 5. Sharp rhythms and phrases in alternating metres; 6. A colorful palette of staccato touches – from pizzicato to a stormy marcato – which evoke the sound world of oriental plucked instrument like the oud, qanun and santour accompanied by the darbouka drum; 7. Melodic patterns reminiscent of the zourna (oriental shepherd flute). The work’s soundscape, as defined by the composer, allows for copious use of the pedal. Boskovich felt that Mid-Eastern music has a spacious quality, evocative of the vast expanses of the desert. This “out-of-doors character”, comparable to the sonorities of the Indonesian Gamelan orchestra, “inspires the listener with a cosmic feeling of illuminated transparency, imbued with optimism”. In editing the versions for two pianos and for piano four-hands, I relied on the manuscripts of all its versions; thus, I transferred tempo indications, slurs, pedal signs and performing instructions from one version to another. The “borrowed” verbal instructions and dynamic markings are placed in parentheses.Miriam Boskovich