About the creation

It is a setting of three verses from The Song of Songs made to celebrate the thirty-sixth anniversary of The Zamir Chorale of Boston. I chose these three verses for obvious reasons, as most appropriate for the occasion. I have set these three verses for a five-part choir accompanied by a piano.  

However, the piano plays a much more significant role than just filling in the harmonies or doubling the vocal parts: at some moments, as in the second and third movements, the piano seems to be the protagonist, leading the five vocal parts from phrase to phrase.

Also, each one of the five vocal parts moves along its own path, enjoying a great degree of freedom: there is no one melody with the other voices supplying the "accompaniment" or filling in harmony. All the five vocal parts are equally important: they all sing melodies simultaneously, each with their own melody. I aimed (perhaps subconsciously) at giving the impression of a merry spring festival, in which the oneness of erotic love and of the love of Nature strives to reach the highest possible flights of spirituality.

Eventually I have rewritten the piano part for an orchestra. Whatever I said about the piano part is a fortiori true for the orchestra. The orchestral version was given its first performance at the 2007 Abu Gosh Festival by the Tel-Aviv Choir and the Symphonet Orchestra Raanana, conducted by Michael Shani.