About the creation

In 2003 my friend Richard Rosen of New York has reminded me that I have already set to music chapter III of The Song of Songs and also “Eshet Hayil” from The Book of Proverbs, The two books traditionally ascribed to King Solomon in his youth and in his adulthood respectively. The time has come, said my friend, to set to music verses from Kohelet, the book ascribed to King Solomon in his old age. So I did, and set to music a collection of verses from Kohelet for a five part choir with piano. I have dedicated the music to Richard Rosen and His wife Phyllis, both members of the “Zamir” choir of New York. I did not tell my friends of New York that meanwhile, maybe before maybe afterwards, I have set to music quite a number of verses from the “Song of Songs” and from the “Proverbs”. But my encounter, as a composer, with “Kohelet” was for me a new, unique and most powerful experience. Many times in the past I have looked into “Kohelet”. But a setting to music of a text demands a reading in-depth. And while reading and re-reading the book, I have discovered in it a very wise and very human person. I have discovered a new friend far away in the remote past. Was he really King Solomon in his old age, or was he one of the rich citizens of Jerusalem of the Second Temple, wise with an experience of a long life? – And who knows, perhaps there hides under the name “Kohelet” one of the sages of the “Mishna”? Perhaps Rabban Gamliel, perhaps Rabbi Meir, perhaps even Elisha ben Avuya, the “other one”? Yehezkel Braun