Program Notes:

String Quartet no. 2 – “Hope Cycles”, in one movement, focus on the endless war between Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East from the small person’s point of view. As an Israeli myself, I always find it hard to explain to European /American people where is the real tragedy, the one of the individual person – not the one behind the “selected” pictures one sees on the TV screen or see in any other media. 
 

The music describes the fear, hate, anger, love, remorse, the claustrophobic and uncertain feeling of being under daily attack (no matter in what side one is.) I believe that without the hope for a real peaceful solution and for a better life, things would have been much worse – the hope is what keeps people alive. Yet, between one hopeful chapter to another, the reality hits once more – more innocent victims die and more families are being destroyed, on a daily basis. Most of the stories of these individual victims never reach the international media, who ironically enough look only for “big numbers.”

The viola represents such an individual who faces reality on its cruel side. Hoping, lamenting, loving, tendering, and accepting the sad reality… The quartet consists of connected sections that depict the brutal fate that occurs and the acceptance of fate as a natural part of life, the emotional whirlpools, the instability, the fighting, the lamenting emotion, the distanced and cold emotion, the hope, the disillusion, the farewell, and the recurring destiny, moving on to the next victim.  

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There are few short thematic fragments and motives which are repeated in different variations to create a stronger emotional feeling towards the end of the quartet. Some of these short motives include the half scale of the Arabic “Maqam Hijaz”, as well as short fragments from Jewish Music. Funny enough, both motives are aurally and historically closely related. Despite the highly charged subject, I chose to restrain the emotional level of expression. Therefore, except for a few short emotional bursts, the audience will perceive a somewhat cold, filtered expression, as if they are watching a show from behind a glass.

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String Quartet no. 2 – “Hope Cycles” was written for Borromeo String Quartet, The Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress and dedicated to the memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky.