Muses Between Wars

TLVWQ
Jan 22
2 min read

Updated: 1 day ago

Dear friends,

We are very happy to invite you to our upcoming concerts. Under the title ‘Muses Between Wars’ we will embark on a musical journey through Europe of the early and mid-20th century.

We are honored to host pianist Benjamin Hochman for this program. It features works for piano and winds that were created in times of turmoil, loss and hope. At the core of the evening are two sextets written at the same time: the well-known Sextet by Francis Poulenc, whose closing bars the composer later revised in the spirit of those days, lending the work a more reflective and melancholic ending; alongside it, the Sextet by Leo Smit, a Dutch composer of Jewish origin. His music, full of vitality, stands in a chilling contrast to the composer’s tragic fate. Unfortunately he perished in the Holocaust.

The program also includes the beautiful Sonata for winds and piano by Darius Milhaud; ‘Le Tombeau de Couperin’ by Maurice Ravel, in an arrangement for wind quintet; one of Alexander Zemlinsky’s final works, the Humoreske for quintet; and a movement from the Divertimento by Verdina Shlonsky, considered to be the first Israeli female composer.

We look forward to seeing you in Ra’anana, Jerusalem, Kfar Blum and at the Israel Conservatory of Music in Tel Aviv, where free admission is offered for young people up to age 21 (subject to availability), as well as specially priced tickets for audiences up to age 35.

Further information can be found via the links:

First movement of Poulenc’s Sextet, performed live with Naaman Wagner, Feb 2012

Just prior to this concert tour, we will present two additional concerts. Alongside the works by Ravel and Zemlinsky we will perform light and enjoyable classical pieces by Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. We will also return to the exhilarating klezmer work by Jean-Philippe Calvin, ‘Kleztet’.

You are warmly invited to join us at the Eden-Tamir Music Center in Jerusalem on Saturday, January 31 at 11:00 and at Beit Ha’Am in Rehovot on Wednesday, February 4 at 20:00.