Bestiarius (The Book of Monsters and Creatures)

for alto/mezzo-soprano and ensemble

Duration: 11 minutes
Instrumentation: Alto/Mezzo-Soprano, Flute/Piccolo, Clarinet, Bassoon, Violin, Percussion (2) , Harpsichord

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Program notes:
The Bestiarius, was a common book back in the middle ages. It contained illustrations of animals, some real, some imaginary. The phoenix for example, was introduced through the Bestiaries. In his Bestiaries Israeli poet Dan Pagis, introduces six “animal” poems, from which I chose three.The text which is full with humor, gave me the opportunity to compose music that for most of the time creates a bold contrast to the written word.




Year composed: 1995
Language: English
English Translation:
 Available
Written for: Ayelet Carmon
Premiere performance: 7 July, 1996
Jerusalem, Israel
Ayelet Carmon, mezzo-soprano
Roni Shifrin, flute/piccolo
Roni Barak, clarinet
Eyal Street, bassoon
Michael Zuckerman, violin
Dafna Gan, harpsichord
Pamela Jones and Alex Nemirovsky, percussion
Lior Navok, conductor



Poems Included: 1. The Elephant
2. Armchairs
3. The Mosquito



The Elephant

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Armchairs

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The Mosquito

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Performance History:

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Text: The Elephant
The elephant, veteran general, scarred,
Elephant’s skin, patient:
On his leg’s pillar, stands a whole world of belly, but
that’s his strength: that it restrains itself from inside.
In the last moment,
with a caution of a cotton,
with independent love,
It steps
on sixteen miraculous punctual watches,
Wears four on each leg,
and slide on them lightly as on skates
Out of the elephant’s destiny.


Armchairs
The slowest animals
are the soft leather, big eared armchairs
In the salon’s corner.
They multiply
by the shade of a philodendron’s flowerpot
or a dim Fichus.
and though they are happy to live
slower than the elephants,
they constantly sail
to an endless secret safari.



The Mosquito
The mosquito lives
In the left ear of Titus:
It is a tiny electronic drill
And it saws in the screaming Caesar, as in a wax.
The curves of the internal maze neither mislead it,
nor tempt it at all.
It has a mysterious mission: To discover
The shortest line, straight to the treasure.




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