About the creation

Elegy for clarinet and piano was composed in 1954 (originally for viola or clarinet and string quartet or string orchestra). It takes the form of a poem in five stanzas. Each stanza opens with a variation on the interval of the third - a basic interval of the work - and develops into a free melodic recitative. The last stanza serves as an epilogue.

Elegy for clarinet and string quartet was first performed in Israel in 1962 by the Tel Aviv string quartet with the Israeli clarinetist Yona Ettlinger, who also premiered the string orchestra version with the Kol Yisrael Orchestra under Shalom Ronly-Riklis in 1966.