Noam Sheriff: Music for woodwinds, piano, trombone and double-bass - Lahav Shani, conductor

Curator: Assaf Shelleg Note the title of this work. It is frustratingly generic. Music. What Music? And by whom? Sheriff’s answer emerges in the work on two musical vectors – two types of textures. One vector imitates the textural features of eastern music, stacking similar melodies on top of each other so as to create sonic clouds in which one can seemingly hear simultaneous versions of the same melody. In doing so, Sheriff generates an exotic overload, which at the time was an intentional intensification of the sonority and imagery that characterized art music since the early 1940s. The second vector features the dry and anti-Romantic orchestration of the work (note the lack of strings in this ensemble), consisting of woodwinds, piano, trombone and double-bass. Sheriff’s orchestral texture is closer to Stravinsky’s neo-classical models, to which he was exposed also through the music of Boris Blacher, his professor of composition at the Berlin Musikhochschule (1959–62). Still, Sheriff became familiar with composers’ grappling with Eastern musics through his listening environment in Israel, be it Mordechai Seter’s employment of Yemenite liturgy, and particularly through the works of Paul Ben Haim, with whom Sheriff studied in Israel. So perhaps the title Music is not that frustrating after all; for perhaps it is a strategy of exotic writing but with no signifiers. Either way, Sheriff’s Music is one of his most brilliant works, and he was but 26 when he wrote it. Text: Assaf Shelleg 0:00 I. Con moto e sempre giusto 5:44 II. Molto moderato 10:39 III. Allegro moderato Flute: Guy Eshed, Boaz Meirovitch, Hagar Shahal Oboe: Dudu Carmel, Tamar Narkiss-Melzer, Dmitry Malkin Clarinet: Ron Selka, Rashelly Davis, Jonathan Hadas Bassoon: Daniel Mazaki, Gad Lederman, Carol Patterson Trombone: Nir Erez Bass: Nir Comforty Piano: Yael Kareth   / israel_philharmonic     / israel.philharmonic   ------------------- Video Director: Yoel Culiner Director of Photography: Dror Heller Sound: Rafi Eshel, Yaron Aldema - Eshel Sound Studios Creative Director: Elizabeth Culiner Light Designer: Dani Rogovin Production: Liz Fisher Animation: Gavriel Izaky #ArtMusicInIsrael #Textures #NoamSheriff