Evening of Life
2004
A song cycle with texts by the Yiddish poet Avraham Sutzkever, for soprano and symphony orchestra.
The work was premiered in 2007 by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, soprano Sharon Rostorf, conducted by Zubin Mehta.
"I became acquainted with Sutzkever and his poems thanks to the author and journalist Ofra Alyagon (who is also Chairwoman of the Lerner Foundation for Yiddish). She gave me a collection of his poems to read, and I discovered an entire world. I chose three of the poems that I found were connected and seemingly stemmed from each other; poems of retrospection and reflection, poems of summation and culmination. All three express the evening of life, the autumn and the hour of sunset."
Why does the third song have two melodies?
"When I finished composing the three poems, I felt that the third somewhat deviated in style from the first two. I therefore decided to write an additional version. But after I added it, my first version became a natural ending and summary to the entire cycle. Thus, three poems became four. The title of the fourth song is Sutzkever's answer to the question, "Who will remain, what will remain?" – and the answer is: "God will remain – is this not enough?" [D.S.]
Publisher: IMI – Israel Music Institute
