Marimba and string quartet, 2006
Duration: 10 minutes
Program note:
Walking Toward Caesaria is the title of a poem by Hannah Senesh, an
Israeli who volunteered for a rescue mission during World War II and
was captured and killed at the age of 23. Usually translated as
follows, her words were famously set to music by David Zehavi:
Oh Lord, my G-d
I pray that these things never
end
The sand and the sea
The rush of the waters
The crash of the heavens
The prayers of the heart
Commissioned by faculty members from The University of Florida
in
honor of the retirement of Dr. David Kushner, long time head of the
musicology area, and dedicated to the memory of his son, Dr. Jeremy
Kushner, an accomplished percussionist, the piece is in two parts: an
energetic opening featuring passagework for the marimba in dialogue
with the string quartet; and a slow section based upon
Zehavi’s
melody. As Dr. Kushner is one of the world’s foremost experts
on
the music of Ernest Bloch, a fragment from Bloch’s
“Sacred
Service” is quoted in this piece as well.
As Hannah Senesh also wrote:
There are stars whose radiance
is visible on earth
though they have long been
extinct.
There are people whose
brilliance continues to light the world
though they are no longer among
the living.
These lights are particularly
bright when the night is dark.
They light the way for mankind.