About the creation

The work was commissioned by the Haifa Symphony Orchestra for the 1996 season

and was premiered by them under the baton of Maestro Stanley Sperber. The present version includes some additions and changes. The piece is written for four string soloists (members of the string section of the orchestra) and for the string ensemble which backs them up.

Beta is built throughout on a short melodic kernel: "recollection of a song". The players are a kind of "string choir", within which and with which the melodic kernel disperses and comes together again, widens and shrinks, changes directions, passes from one soloist to the other, and from them to the larger ensemble, and alters its position in the sound space. The full authentic melody never leaves the confines of memory.

The present version was first performed by the Chamber Orchestra of the IDF Educational Corps and the Gadna, under the baton of Menahem Nebenhaus, who helped me by his comment and elucidation. The conductor and the performers should emphasize the "absent present": rents of melody and of harmonic progressions (tonal or modal) which, from time to time, lead towards a continuation which does not materialize; certainly, neither immediately nor consecutively. In the final tone as well, the first violin, the soloist, seeks continuation but is cut short. Still, in order to avoid dramatization a rather restrained vibrato should be strictly observed.