Chamber Music Work of the Day, Installment 34:
"The Gift"
for
String Quartet
(2013)
Sketches for "The Gift" date back to the 1990s. I intended for this composition to be an extended, dodecaphonic vocal piece set to a poem of the same name written by Hilde Zeretsky (b. 1899, Russia, d. ?) which appears in the poetry anthology titled "Ten for Posterity: An anthology of Yiddish Poems", translated and compiled by Marie Jaffe (Exposition Press, 1972). As is sometimes the case, my muse would not cooperate with me. So, after years of returning to the sketch, I finally decided to transform the beginning of this work into a brief composition for string quartet to submit to a call for one-minute scores scored for that ensemble.
Zeretsky's poem begins:
“God, Grant me a song,
In simple, humble meters.
I would describe
A twilight mood…”
One can hear the influence of the poem on the music.
The form of "The Gift" is through-composed, beginning with a polyphonic passage in which linear and nonlinear melodic elements contrast with one another, followed by one in which the music becomes gradually more homophonic. The piece ends triumphantly on a high C Major chord, with God granting the protagonist the song she desires.
Follow the next URL to view a high quality synthesized scrolling score music video for "The Gift" on my YouTube channel which I created to encourage live performances.
"The Gift" is available for licensing from me, and for sale from Sheet Music Plus. Follow the next URL to visit the distributor's product page for this title.
Follow the next URL to view a watermarked PDF score of "The Gift" on my website.
Follow the next URL to here to listen to a synthesized rendition of "The Gift" on my website.
I hope you enjoy "The Gift". Thank you for your time and attention.
Stanley M. Hoffman, PhD
Link to my website: https://www.stanleymhoffman.com
Biography Published in Grove Music Online (The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Oxford University Press)
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