Homage to Mendelssohn
Octet Movement | Overture for Strings
Composing Year:
1999/2001
Instruments:
String Octet (double quartet)
OR String Orchestra
Duration:
8'
Original version for string octet:
Members of Keshet Eilon (1999)
The piece is directly influenced by the brilliant and best-known work for this special ensemble: Mendelssohn's Octet for Strings. My Piece is largely based on the central, uplifting theme that opens Mendelsshon’s octet, which of course has undergone considerable melodic, harmonic and rhythmic transformations in passing through my personal prism. The texture of my piece is many times either antiphonal (a group against group) or responsorial (soli against group). The work has a sweeping, rhythmic character, and on a large scale constitutes a tribute to youth and to the “Joie de Vivre” that youth embodies. The original version for string octet was commissioned by "Keshet Eilon" in 1999. In 2001 it was arranged for a string orchestra, at the commission of the Israel Sinfonietta Beer-Sheva.