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In this piece for soprano, violin, cello and piano the text is built on quotations from the Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) prayer book. It is a prayer where the congregation is requesting forgiveness of the Lord for our sins and transgressions so that the next year will be a good and pleasant one for us, devoid of the tragedies of war or poverty.
The first paragraph, "the resurrection of the dead'', is interpreted by the composer as "the resurrection of the almost-dead". This blessing is readc as a prayer for survival. It is recited several times during the Day of Atonement but here it is associated with the central prayer, called Mussaf, which is recited in the middle of the day.
We continue with the Mussaf prayer and reach one of most fateful and dramatic points of the liturgy, "U-netaneh Tokef" in which our fate in the coming year is sealed. The Lord decides "who will live and who will die… who by water and who by fire". In this section we can feel echoes from the Holocaust.
The third and last prayer from the Mussaf is taken from the service in the Temple where the High Priest is praying on behalf of all the House of Israel and he is asking for the forgiving of all the iniquities and sins of the people as a whole. The composer is connecting this request with modern times and with the social injustice and poverty in our present-day Israel.
And it is here where a musical as well as textual turning point takes place and we find ourselves at the end of the prayer, the Ne'ila. The Lord is described as merciful and pardoning, accepting the supplication of the people.
The last section, to the words "I have forgiven as you asked", is set with very optimistic music when we are all approaching the end of the day and we begin to feel relieved after a difficult twenty-four hours of fasting and intensive prayer.
The music in the piece can be described as a journey from darkness and pessimism undergoing a development from extreme modernism in the first three sections, until light is shed as we reach the text of mercy and pardoning. Here we hear a change of musical style which isn't modernistic anymore but rather of a traditional style, towards Baroque and Classical style.
The last section is a coloratura aria in the atmosphere of the Gloria from the catholic mass, which has inspired the composer throughout the years.
Performance:
- 2015: Rona Israel-Kolatt, Soprano; Yael Barolsky, Violin; Jonathan Gotlibovich, Cello; Michal Tal, Piano; from the CD "Facing Eternity" (2015).
Sonata no. 2 for Violin and Piano, 2010
This piece was influenced by repeated visits to the international summer course for pianists at Midreshet Ben Gurion in the Negev. The desert landscapes and the hills of the Negev, with their tancient tradition and Biblical history, are combined with European classical music, performed by the foremost young pianists of our time.
When she was composing the piece, the composer had a dream, in which she sits alone and plays at her piano, positioned at the heart of the Negev, under blue skies. After observing the desert scenery and listening to the young pianists, she created varied and intriguing music for violin and piano. The music combines tones from the lowest register of the piano, and virtuoso passages for violin and piano and with celestial tones that are pervasive with mysticism and imagination. The first movement is dramatic and stormy; the second movement has a dreamy and mystical atmosphere and the third and last movement is written in the Jazz style. This movement is built on a subject from Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo a la Turk" and hence the title of the movement is "Jazz a la Brubeck".
The Sonata is dedicated to the Jewish Swedish violinist Semmy Stahlhammer, and the piece was recorded at its world premiere
The work is included in the CD Kol Kore Bamidbar - A Voice Crieth in the Wilderness, 2011.
Performances:
- 2011: Semmy Stahlhammer, Violin; Michal Tal, Piano; "Hateiva" Hall, Tel-Aviv.
- 2015: Yael Barolsky, Violin; Michal Tal, Piano; from the CD "Facing Eternity" (2015).
For String Quartet, 2000 (publisher: IMC 2000)
This piece was written to commemorate the memory of Amitai Rokem, who died in an accident during a class excursion in 1990, at the age of 17. The work is dedicated to Galit and Freddie Rokem, Amitai's parents and close friends of the composer.
A funeral march motive alternating with fugal episodes moves through various styles until the tonal ending is reached. The piece is also built on a famous phrase from “Death and the Maiden” by Schubert. The phrase is hinted at throughout the work, and appears in an exact quotation towards the end.
The work is included in the CD Prisms, 2004.
Performance:
- 2004: Carmel String Quartet.
For 16 part mixed Choir a-cappella, 1993. Text from Liber Jesaiae, in Hebrew, Jes. 38, 10-20 (publisher: IMI 1994)
The work Uneginotai Nenagen – And We Shall Sing My Songs of Praise was composed to the text of Liber Jesaia, 38, 10-20, where King Hezekiah tells of a severe illness that was finally cured. He expresses thanks and praises the Lord for delivering him from his illness and saving his life. In the work by Galinne this text has been interpreted allegorically. An imaginary, modern individual is undergoing an inner journey – from despair and pessimism, to gradual optimism, until finally he praises life and its Creator.
In the first section, illness, fear and despair are associated with modernistic, strongly dissonant musical material. In the second part, which can be described as a transitory section, there is a confrontation between the harsh and dissonant elements on one hand and consonant harmony and melody on the other hand. In the third and last part the dissonances are finally resolved, and the music bursts out into a song of happiness and joy. The work ends with tonal music, still in 16 parts, but inspired by the choral music of J.S. Bach. Other main influences are "Midnight Vigil" by Mordecai Seter, "Drei Phantasien nach Friedrich Hölderlin" by György Ligeti and "… a riveder le stelle" by the Swedish composer Ingvar Lidholm.
The work was written for the Swedish Radio Choir and was recorded in 1995 by the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation P2, conducted by Pär Fridberg.
The work is included in the CD Uneginotai Nenagen - And We Shall Sing my Songs of Praise, 1999.
Performance:
1995: Swedish Radio Choir; Conductor: Pär Fridberg; Stockholm, Sweden, 1995
For large Ensemble, 2005 (publisher: IMC 2005)
In the Chamber Symphony the composer moves freely between Expressionism, post-Romanticism, contemporary cluster textures and Viennese Classicism. The composer creates compositoric unity within the composition, despite the wide scope of material used, by creating strong motivic connections between the contrasting musical styles. The point of departure for her work is the opening theme of Mozart's Piano Concerto in C-Minor K. 491. This theme, which exposes the demonic, dark and stormy aspects of Mozart's music, serves as the compositoric material for the entire symphony. Small motivic cells from the theme have been harmonized and orchestrated according to the ongoing changes in character and style that occur during the process of musical development.
The beginning of the work is dark and gloomy. Small motivic cells from the Mozart theme can be heard on the low register of the ensemble surrounded by post-Romantic harmony. After additional extensions of the thematic ideas – now in Expressionist style reminiscent of Schoenberg – the original Mozart subject is quoted. And then, all of a sudden, the stormy atmosphere changes and we find ourselves in a slow, lyrical movement in a tonal classical style. Although this section is built entirely on material from the theme by Mozart, it includes no direct quotations and the section contains only original music by Galinne.
The celestial calmness is suddenly interrupted by an extremely violent cluster texture, and we now find ourselves back in Modernist style. The cluster music gradually becomes calmer but then returns. Each time the cluster returns it becomes softer and weaker, until at the end, the music dies away, unresolved but peaceful.
Chamber Symphony was premiered by the Israel Contemporary Players on the 14th and 15th of January, 2006 in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, conducted by Nicholas Carthy.
The work is included in the CD Ethalech Be'artsot Hachayim - I Will Walk in the Land of the Living, 2008.
Performance:
- 2006: "The Israel Contemporary Players"; Conductor: Nicolas Carthy.
For large Orchestra, 1986 (publisher: IMI 1988)
Cycles can be said to consist of two elements, a rhythmic and a melodic one. The rhythmic element is represented by a row, that occurs several times in the percussion section in canon between the various percussion instruments and also in tutti sections with block rhythm, reminding of Stravinsky ("Rite of Spring"). The percussion canon occurs several times during the piece and was decisive for the choice of the name Cycles.
The second element is melodic, and it is connected to a modal harmonic conception. Small melodic cells are created and they occur mainly in the two slow sections, one of which appears slightly after the rhythmic introduction and the other one later on.
"When composing Cycles I decided about which notes would predominate in each section according to the intervals which had the character I wanted – in the slow sections I chose thirds, seconds and tritons. The absence of notes which did not belong to the modes in question created a very clear harmonic colour, and the modes could also be transposed like tonal transposition or the use of transposed twelve tone rows".
The third element of the piece is a development of the second, melodic idea. When more and more melodic parts are added, the music becomes blurred and a cluster effect is achieved. The clusters can be built up by the same melodic and harmonic material as in the transparent sections thus creating a sense of unity and compositoric coherence.
Towards the end a large orchestral climax is created when the strings and wood wind play an extremely dense cluster that sounds like a stormy "cloud" and the brass section play a very powerful harmonized melody in the low register of the instruments. The timpani and bass drum play a long tremolo in fortissimo solving the tension only with the skillfully delayed final bang.
The work was premiered by Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Gary Bertini in 1992. The Israeli premier took place in 1996 with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Theodor Guschlbauer and was recorded by the Israel Broadcasting Authority.
The work is included in the CD Uneginotai Nenagen - And We Shall Sing my Songs of Praise, 1999.
Performances:
- 1996: Israel Philharmonic Orchestra; Conductor: Theodor Guschlbauer; Recorded by the Israel Broadcasting Authority on the 7.3.1996, at the Mann Auditorium, Tel Aviv.
- 1992: Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra; Conductor: Gary Bertini, Recorded by the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation P2, on November 21st, 1992, at the Berwald Hall, Stockholm, Sweden.
For Clarinet, 2006
Dybbuk, a short piece for solo clarinet, was inspired by the ballet of the same name by the choreographer Maurice Bejart.
According to Jewish folklore, "Dybbuk" was the name of the evil spirit that possessed Leah, a young Jewish maiden. Leah was forced to marry a man whom she did not love instead of her beloved Hanan, a talented student of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). When Hanan realized that Leah's parents would force her to marry another man he died of a broken heart. During the wedding, his voice suddenly entered Leah and she became possessed with the Dybbuk spirit. Later on in the story Leah is united with Hanan in death.
This story appears in a famous play by S.Ansky (1914) and in many other contexts, including the ballet by Bejart. The music for this choreography uses klezmer music to illustrate the external plot, while quotations from Schoenberg describe Leah's stormy inner world.
In her piece for clarinet Galinne composed her own music instead of using quotations. Modern passages are interchanged with her own original klezmer music. This is most evident in the wedding dance when Leah is forced to marry the wrong man. A famous klezmer wedding melody is twisted and distorted into a dance macabre.
The piece was dedicated to the clarinetist Orit Orbach.
Perfromance:
2011: Orit Orbach, Clarinet; A concert in honor of the composer Rachel Galinne on the occasion of the transfer of her archive to the Music Department Archive at the National Library of Israel.
For Orchestra, 1996. The second movement, Andante Lamentoso, dedicated to the memory of Itzhak Rabin (publisher: IMI 1996)
Galinne's First Symphony was written in the context of the 60th Anniversary Jubilee Contest held by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. It was premiered and recorded by the IPO (conducted by Mendi Rodan) during the final stage of the competition.
The Symphony is festive in character and includes, for the first time in Galinne's work, elements of Israeli folklore as well as brass section fanfares and clusters. The work was influenced by Paul Ben-Haim's "Fanfare to Israel" and opens with a trumpet fanfare.
The work has an optimistic tone and was inspired by the hopes for peace during that era as a result of the peace talks led by Itzhak Rabin. But Itzhak Rabin was assassinated while the piece was being composed. The whole country was shocked. Galinne decided to dedicate the second movement, Lamentoso, to the memory of the late Prime Minister Rabin. The Lamentoso is written with canon technique. It begins in the low register, moves up to heaven but returns to the dark, low and mourning character where it began.
The work has three movements, and begins with an optimistic opening. After the mournful Lamentoso the last movement retains the optimism of the first movement. The final triumphant ending expresses Rachel Galinne's almost messianic belief and the hope, which we all share, that peace will finally come to the Middle East and to Israel, even if it takes a long time.
Performance:
- 1996: The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra; Conductor: Mendi Rodan; Israel Broadcasting Authority "Kol Israel".
For String Quartet, 2004 (publisher: IMC 2004)
This piece has no programmatic elements – it is a piece of “absolute” music, built purely on melody, polyphony etc. in a free, somewhat modal atonal style. The work consists of three sections, each of them with a separate fugal subject. All the subjects are derived from the letters of the name BACH. (B flat, A, C, B nat.) In addition, this work is inspired by Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge. The piece is a continuation of the polyphonic writing that the composer developed in her earlier works, and it contains various kinds of canons as well as other techniques. In this work, Rachel Galinne intended to create optimistic music expressing the joy of life, undisturbed by non-musical elements.
The work is included in the CD Prisms, 2004.
Performance:
- 2004: Carmel String Quartet; Rachel Ringelstein, Violin; Barak Tal, Violin; Yoel Greenberg, Viola; Tami Waterman, Cello.
For Soprano, Clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano, 2006. Text from Psalmi, in Hebrew (publisher: IMC, 2006)
The work Ethalech Be'artsot Hachayim – I Will Walk in the Land of the Living – was dedicated to the memory of the composer's mother Zofia Gluchowicz, a Holocaust survivor. The idea of the work was conceived while Rachel Galinne delivered her funeral speech.
In that speech, Galinne talked about her mother's extraordinary will to live as a survivor of two concentration camps, Auschwitz and Ravensbrueck as well as the death march in which she took part. She was saved by a miracle and moved to Sweden as a refugee. There she began a new life and built a family and a professional career. Later on, she moved to Israel together with her family.
Galinne's mother used to say that whatever happens, you should never give up hope. Even if you cannot see any light, you should not give up but continue to hope. This was, perhaps, the secret of her ability to survive – the fact that she never gave up.
The work uses verses from Psalms to describe the suffering during the Holocaust, as well as a new hope. In the end, where the text is very happy – almost ecstatic – Galinne's music is happy and optimistic as well.
As in many of Galinne's works, the music moves between a multitude of styles from both the past and present, in order to create maximal dramatic tension and contrast. Thus, in the section which depicts the suffering of the Holocaust the style is a modern continuation of Expressionism. However, it is also strongly influenced by Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Times which was composed when Messiaen was a prisoner in a Nazi work camp and which is similar in its instrumentation to Galinne's piece. In the last section of the piece where the Psalms depict ecstatic religious belief that serves as an expression of victory over suffering, violence and death, Galinne chooses to use a faux-Baroque style, with a singer performing a coloratura part. When composing the coloratura section the composer drew her inspiration from the clarity and brilliance that characterizes the vocal works of J.S. Bach, whose music can stand as an ideal and model even in our time.
The work premiered in Jerusalem on the 5th of March, 2007 at an "Etnachta" concert that was broadcast live on Israeli radio and on the following day in Tel Aviv in a concert dedicated to works by Galinne and produced by the Musica Nova Consort.
The work is included in the CD Ethalech Be'artsot Hachayim - I Will Walk in the Land of the Living, 2008.
Performance:
2007: Eva Ben-Zvi, Soprano; Orit Orbach, Clarinet; Gilad Hildesheim, Violin; Raz Kohn, Cello; Allan Sternfield, Piano; The Jerusalem Music Center.
For two Pianos and Percussion, 1984 (publisher: IMI 1988)
Islossning – Breaking the Bonds of Ice was first performed in 1985. The second performance of the piece took place in 1989 at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and was recorded by Israel Broadcasting Authority.
"Islossning" is the Swedish word for the short period between winter and spring when the ice covering the rivers, lakes and the sea begin to melt and new forces of life awake. The title was chosen as a metaphoric description of an emotional breakthrough and is not to be taken literally.
The ensemble is treated as a sonoric unity where the pianos are treated as melodic and percussive instruments and the percussion section produces melodies as well as percussive sounds. Small melodic cells, that can be characterized as waves of energy, bounce back and forth between the instruments. In this manner the energetic material bursts out and creates the overwhelming impression of the forces of nature, or rather – human elementary forces of new life.
The work is included in the CD Uneginotai Nenagen - And We Shall Sing my Songs of Praise, 1999.
Performance:
1999: Sara Fuxon-Heyman and Bart Berman, Piano; Gene Cipriani, Gilad Dobrecki, Percussion.
In her Piano Sonata (2019), Rachel Galinne examines her close relationship with the piano, which she began studying at an early age. According to Galinne, whose style combines contemporary sonorities and traditional writing, she began improvising as a child, while learning to read music. In her improvisations she attempted at first to imitate the style of the great composers whom she got to know during her piano studies, but later refrained from fixed rhythm and from continuous melodic lines, compositional techniques to which she was exposed at a later stage. While the first movement of the Sonata, which opens with a series of tone clusters, demonstrates a contemporary compositional style, the second movement is a funeral march, influenced by slow movements of Beethoven and Schubert. The third movement, inspired mainly by the finale of Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata, combines both styles. Despite the varied movements, the appearance of similar motives and the variations on the funeral march connect all the parts of the work, turning it into one continuous narrative. The Sonata, which reflects the treatment of the piano as a lyrical instrument on the one hand and a percussive instrument on the other, poses a “mirror” in front of the piano literature of the 19th to the 21st century, and expresses the way in which this literature influenced Galinne’s compositional style.
The Sonata was premiered in 2019 by Ofra Yitzhaki and recorded by Hagai Yodan.
Performances:
- 2019: Ofra Itzhaki, piano; Israel Conservatory of Music, Tel Aviv.
- 2019: Hagai Yodan.
The piece Piyous-Reconciliation contains two poems: Reconciliation (Versöhnung) by Elsa Lasker-Schüler and Meheichal le’heichal (From Temple to Temple) by Zelda.
The entire work is related to reconciliation, to the willingness to compromise and to resolve, characteristic of those who have matured, alongside an attempt to deal with bereavement, which connects it to the work we just heard, In Memoriam Amitai. Despite everything, the composer now feels joy and a second spring in her life as a senior creator.
Rachel Galinne strongly identifies with the poems of Elsa Lasker-Schüler, and in 1992 she set her piece Schwarze Gesänge (Dark Songs) to music, during a very challenging period of her life. As part of her identification with the poet at the time, Rachel chose to compose the selection of songs in the original language.
In the present work, the poem Reconciliation has been translated and will be sung in Hebrew. This is the composer’s reconciliation with Israeli reality and with the fact that most of her works are directed mainly at Israeli audiences.
The Jewish poetess, author, playwright and painter Elsa Lasker-Schüler was born in Germany in 1869 and died in Jerusalem in 1945. She is considered one of the most prominent artists in the German-speaking world. Her personal and creative milieu merge in many ways with the decades in which she was active in Germany, until the rise of the Nazis, when she was forced to flee to Switzerland, a penniless refugee, who tried to hold on to her homeland and then emigrated to Palestine. Here she was a controversial figure. One of the reasons was that she continued to write in German and refused to have her poems translated into Hebrew.
The sense of mysticism that began in Rachel Galinne’s piece Schwarze Gesänge– a selection of poems by Elsa Lasker-Schüler – continues in the poem From Temple to Temple by Zelda. This section is partly modal and partly written in the style of Monteverdi, in the seam between Renaissance and Baroque. The happy and optimistic ending is depicted in sounds that resemble the Viennese Classics.
The motif of eternity is symbolized by the octaves that open the work. The octaves reappear in the transition to Zelda’s poem and at the end. The octaves of eternity close the circle.
Reconciliation was intended to be premiered in a concert produced by the composer in May 2021, but the concert was interrupted due to the massive rocket attack on Tel Aviv and the Sharon region in the Guardian of the Walls Operation. In July that year the performers reconvened and recorded the work without an audience. A video of the work with subtitles is available on the composer’s YouTube channel.
Hebrew translation of Lasker-Schüler’s Reconciliation (Versöhnung): Galit Hasan-Rokem
Performance:
- 2021: Doron Salomon conductor, Rona Israel-Kolatt soprano, Revital Hahamoff, piano, Carmel Quartet. The Israel Conservatory of Music, Tel Aviv.
For Soprano/Alto voice and Piano, 1992. Text in German by Else Lasker-Schueler (publisher: IMI 1996)
Schwarze Gesänge – Dark Songs (1992/2004) is a collection of songs for voice and piano set to texts by Else Lasker-Schüler. These somber songs reflect the atmosphere that permeates the poetess' later works. In her settings, the composer expresses the dark and pessimistic character of the songs with subtle, inward-looking and transparent textures in a tonal language, resembling Schubert's Lieder. The cycle was originally written for the alto Mira Zakai in 1992. A version for soprano was prepared specially for Rona Israel-Kolatt in 2004.
The Rona Israel-Kolatt recording also contains song number 4 "Ich liege wo am Wegrand uebermattet" (I lie at a Roadside Overcome) which was omitted in the Mira Zakai performance and recording.
The work is included in the CD's:
- Uneginotai Nenagen - And We Shall Sing my Songs of Praise, 1999.
- Prisms, 2004.
- Kol Kore Bamidbar - A Voice Crieth in the Wilderness, 2011.
Performances:
- 1999: Mira Zakai, alto; Jonathan Zak, piano.
- 2011: Rona Israel-Kolatt, Soprano; Michal Tal, piano.
Sonata no. 1 for Violin and Piano, 2009 (publisher:IMC 2009)
This piece was inspired by the sense of divinity, light and joy that the composer found in her studies of Jewish kabbalah. At the time, Rachel Galinne was also influenced by the works of Messiaen, inspired by his Christian faith. Messiaen's contemporary mysticism merges in the first movement of the work with a clear and translucent C major by the composer. The second, slow movement begins with a kind of chorale that undergoes metamorphoses. In the third and concluding movement a spritely and joyful fugue is played, built out of Israeli-modal materials.
The sonata of Light was premiered by Vera Vaidman and Emanuel Krasovsky in Israel and shortly thereafter performed in Sweden by Semmy Stahlhammer and Georg Öquist.
The work is included in the CD Kol Kore Bamidbar - A Voice Crieth in the Wilderness, 2011.
Performance:
- 2011: Semmy Stahlhammer, Violin; Michal Tal, Piano; "Hateiva" Hall, Tel-Aviv, 2011
For Tenor/Soprano voice and small Ensemble, 2002 (publisher: IMC 2002)
Text in Hebrew by Elazar Ben Judah, Worms, Germany, written in 1197
The work was conceived during the composer’s first visit in Mainz in 2001, when her work Schwarze Gesaenge for voice and piano was performed as part of the Woche der Juedischen Musik. Matthew Peaceman, the director of the festival, asked her to write a work for oboe, and she decided to create a piece of contemporary music for Baroque instruments.
After returning home, Rachel Galinne added a tenor part. She also chose a text from the Middle Ages, by Elieser bar Jehuda, of Mainz/Magenza. The Hebrew text is a lamentation for the author's two daughters, Bellet and Hannah who were killed together with their mother by two "wicked men" in 1197. During this period many Jews were killed by Crusaders on their way to Palestine.
Galinne chose to tell this dramatic story with very small means – silently, calmly, almost at a whisper, thus creating a contrast between the violent drama and the modest artistic methods used to describe it. With a text from the middle ages, Baroque instruments, and a 21st Century composer, the piece is a mixture of styles – something that is common in postmodern music. The beginning of the work is reminiscent of German medieval Minnesaenger. It then continues the Baroque style, describing the virtues of the 13 year old Bellet. Later on, when the text is describing the actual murder, a more modern, expressionistic style is used. There are also elements of Jewish religious chants in this piece, meant to evoke the story of a Jew from Mainz/Magenza during the Middle Ages – a story that has tragic connotations for the modern world.
The piece premiered in Mainz in 2003.
The work is included in the CD Prisms, 2004.
Performances:
- 2004: Yossi Aridan, Tenor; Matthew Peaceman, Oboe; Miri Singer, Harpsichord; Orit Messer, Cello.
- 2009: Memorial Concert for Matthew Peaceman (1956-2008), recorded in September 2009 live at the Felicja Blumental Music Center, Tel Aviv; Rona Israel-Kolatt, soprano; Amir Bakman, Baroque Oboe; Orit Messer-Jacobi, Baroque Cello; Miri Singer, Harpsichord.
For Violin, Cello and Piano, 2006 (publisher: IMC, 2006)
Trio Energico is written in a three movement, fast-slow-fast structure, similar to the three movement structure associated with the classical trio. The piece begins with an energetic ostinato motive played by the whole ensemble. This ostinato, often found in the accompanying voices of a classical piano trio, here, is the dominant motive in fortissimo. Later, in the first part, as melodic ideas are being developed and begin to play a more prominent role, the rhythmic ostinato recedes into the background though it still maintains its energetic and percussive quality. In the last several measures the ostinato returns to prominence.
An inward looking and meditative second movement, built on modal harmonies, follows. We associate these modes with Gregorian music as well as with Israeli folk music and art music related to folklore. These modes, in fast and dance like tempi could give the work an Israeli character, but due to the slow and meditative character of this movement it is more likely to be associated with medieval music inspired by Gregorian modes.
The third movement, bearing the title “Jazzy” is fast and dance-like. It is the first piece in which the composer incorporated rhythmic elements of Jazz. The work comes to an end with quotations from the first and second movements, coming full circle by returning to the percussive ostinato motive heard at the beginning of the piece.
Trio Energico was composed at the request of the pianist Martina Graf-Niessner of Mainz, and the work is dedicated to her. Ms. Graf-Niessner performed the world premiere of this piece in Mainz in 2006 with her trio "Trois Femmes" and the same ensemble also played it in Duesseldorf in May, 2007. The Israeli premier took place at a concert arranged by the Musica Nova Consort in March, 2007 in Tel Aviv.
The work is included in the CD Ethalech Be'artsot Hachayim - I Will Walk in the Land of the Living, 2008.
Performances:
- 2007: Gilad Hildesheim, Violin; Raz Kohn, Cello; Allan Sternfield, Piano; The Jerusalem Music Center.
- 2019: Yael Barolsky, violin; Avigail Arad, cello, Ofra Yitzhaki, piano; Recorded at Rachel Galinne Anniversary Concert, 2.4.2019, Israel Conservatory of Music, Tel Aviv.
For Clarinet, Viola and Piano, 1990 (publisher: IMI 1998)
In this work, Rachel Galinne took her first steps of departure from modernism and began to approach tonality. The piece is constructed by sixths and thirds in various non-tonal combinations, and these intervals are decisive for the melodic and harmonic development as well. The first movement, which begins with a dark colored bass clarinet solo in the low register in moderate tempo and then moves faster, is written in sonata form. The second movement is slow and it is composed as a passacaglia. A set of chords, consisting of sixths and thirds are repeated in various transpositions enabling melodic development. A dark solo for bass clarinet ends the work.
Rachel Galinne wrote: "The piece obviously does not contain any "new" elements of composing. My intention was not to write avant-garde music, but to write good music. I do not think that art should be judged primarily according to its degree of innovation, but first and foremost according to its quality or artistic value. It is clear to me that anything that is new today will be old tomorrow, but good art can survive".
The Trio was first performed in Jerusalem in 1991 by "Trio Tel Aviv".
The work is included in the CD Uneginotai Nenagen - And We Shall Sing my Songs of Praise, 1999.
Performance:
- 1999: Avigail Arnheim, Clarinet; Amos Boasson, Viola; Allan Sternfield, Piano.
The first musical experience that Rachel Galinne recalls occurred when she was five. "I heard on the radio Mozart's Variations on the children's song 'Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman'. The work left such an impression on me and a strong desire to understand the connection between the various variations that I just had to write such a work myself…".
Several years passed and in 2021 Rachel Galinne composed her work Variations on a Children’s Song for string quartet.
The variations are written in different styles. Not surprisingly, three are in the style of Mozart. There is a section resembling dodecaphony, followed by a folk dance and a contrapuntal variation in Renaissance style. Finally, Mozart’s style returns in the character of a motif from his “Jupiter” Symphony.
In 2021, when Rachel wrote her work Variations on a Children’s Song as an adult, she returned to her childhood memories, which connect her with the present and with all the grandchildren in her family, to whom she dedicated the work – the grandchildren of her brother Mordechai and his wife Irit.
The piece was recorded in July 2021 by Carmel Quartet.
Performance:
2021: Carmel Quartet; The Israel Conservatory of Music, Tel Aviv.
For soprano, tenor, horn, violin, cello and piano (2018)
Hatichyena was premiered at the Israel Music Festival by the Israel Contemporary Players, and was commissioned for the 70th anniversary of the State of Israel and the composer’s seventieth birthday. The work relates to the two main events in the history of the Jewish people in the 20th century: the Holocaust and the foundation of the State of Israel. Its title is taken from the dramatic Dry Bones Prophecy from the Book of Ezekiel, Chapter 37, which is sung in its entirety. In addition, verses from Psalm 115 also appear, creating an atmosphere of joy and desire to live. Although the compositional style is basically European, the use of texts from Jewish sources, which characterizes many of Galinne’s works, combined with cantorial elements, attests to her close connection with the Jewish world and the Zionist ethos. The musical language of “Hatichyena” reflects the composer’s desire for multi-stylistic unity, which combines contemporary sonorities and traditional classical writing, with a link to European styles from various periods. The work opens in a somber atmosphere, shaped by a dissonant sonority that contains dense chords, and continues in cantorial style and with modal gestures, but its ending is completely tonal. In the final part, Galinne quotes from Mozart’s motet, Exsultate Jubilate, K. 165, which serves as source material for variations. The word “Hallelujah”, which ends Mozart’s motet, is also the word that concludes the text from Psalms that Galinne chose to quote and which concludes her work. The composer, who stated that the piano variations by Mozart that she heard as a child led to her music studies, used another of Mozart’s works, Piano Concerto in C minor, K. 491, as a basis for all the motivic development in her work Chamber Symphony of 2005. In 2021, Galinne again used the same song on which Mozart based his variations in her work Variations on a Children’s Song.
The choice of a sequence of sonorities that emerge from darkness to light are connected directly to Galinne’s biography, and represent the transition from the tragedy of the Holocaust, which both her parents survived and from which they fled to Sweden, to the continuation of life there and later in Israel. The optimistic ending, which is intensified through the quotation from Mozart and the use of tonal harmonic language, reflects the elation and exuberance that Galinne feels today.
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