A Time to Mourn and a Time to Dance (Concerto for Two Violins and Strings)
PUBLISHER Lyric Row Press
DURATION ca. 18 minutes
ORCHESTRATION Two Solo Violins, Strings
Program Note
Avner Dorman - A Time to Mourn and a Time to Dance
Commissioned by:
The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, with support from the Voices of Today initiative, Andreas Delfs, music
director
Sejong Soloists, Kyung Kang, Creative and Executive Director, with generous support from Jin Young Lee Kim
Aspen Music Festival and School, Robert Spano, Music Director
Santa Barbara Symphony, Nir Kabaretti, Music & Artistic Director
I had been meaning to write a concerto for Gil and Adele for quite a while. The opportunity to do so came at a
particularly challenging time in the world - especially for my country of origin, Israel, and the Jewish people. The
attack of October 7th and the ensuing war have touched me personally and have cast a cloud over everything during the
past year.
In trying to cope with these events and challenges, I found myself looking for rituals that deal with loss and that
would connect me to the collective experience. I have found that the Jewish tradition often combines practices of
mourning with those of celebration - a combination that holds a deep meaning for me.
The piece is written in four movements. The first is a meditative lament that begins with a soft, distant drone. The
solo violins introduce the main theme - an elegiac melody that incorporates Jewish prayer gestures and the 'sigh' motif
- a descending half step. Through the movement these elements and the theme travel between the soloists and larger
ensemble, ending with a simple solemn prayer.
An upbeat dance in changing meters, the second movement employs the same scales and thematic materials of the first, but
now they serve as the building blocks of an exciting drama. The movement is structured as a series of dance tunes and
various textural explorations, reaching its culmination in a reprise of the harmonic sighs of the opening movement, now
as a cathartic release.
Deeply sorrowful, the third movement opens with the return of persistent drones, and the sigh motif permeates almost
every bar of the melody. The movement is structured like a large triple fugue, beginning with the individual solo
players and slowly spreading throughout the ensemble. After an intense yet still lamentful climax, the movement
continues to slow down as if time stands still - ritualistic, slowly, and softly.
An exuberant and exciting dance, the fourth movement is mostly in an asymmetrical 7/16 meter. Joy, almost forgotten in
the lament, returns in full force, though the material includes both elements of happiness and grief. This joy
acknowledges the pain and sorrow yet embraces the opportunity to dance again.
Scores
Reviews
After the ensemble gave a solid (if perhaps unnecessary) performance of Air on the G String from Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D, Dorman introduced his new work, A Time to Mourn and a Time to Dance, Concerto for Two Violins and Strings. He wrote it for Anthony and Shaham as a “companion” to the Bach Double. Like Diamond’s Rounds, which borrows the concept of imitative counterpoint yet sounds thoroughly American and modern, Dorman’s work is not in the least neo-Baroque. It is, however, an important example of programmatic instrumental music.
The title is taken from the biblical passage in Ecclesiastes that starts, “For everything there is a season,” which pairs the necessary opposing elements of existence: living and dying, sowing and reaping, and so forth. Dorman explained that the only pair he didn’t understand was “A time to mourn and a time to dance.” So he composed this four-movement concerto to explore that concept, alternating between mourning and dancing. The result is a deeply true exegesis of the experience of grief.
The concerto’s opening movement is “Meditative”; it and the parts that follow have a fundamentally Jewish sound, both in their combination meters and the use of minor mode with an augmented second in the scale. Anthony started with a passage laying out that distinctive interval, then picked up by Shaham, who played it against her counter-subject as the orchestra sustained quiet notes. The movement blossomed out suddenly; it is prayerful, yet interrupted by motion, like a distracted mind that can’t concentrate. The beautifully played solos snatched ideas from the orchestra and tossed them back.
“Upbeat,” the second movement, is fast and frantic. Although Dorman described it as a dance, it evoked a grieving person determined to stay busy, to put off processing grief. In its forced jocularity, countless short ideas were glued together. Anthony and Shaham played rapid-fire 16th notes and triplets that blurred into an orchestral tempest.
Composer Avner Dorman joined violinists Adele Anthony and Gil Shaham onstage after the world premiere of his ‘A Time to Mourn and a Time to Dance,’ Concerto for Two Violins and Strings.
In the Kaddish-like “Lamentful,” the aching solos against held notes returned. For one moment the minor turned major — but that raised scale pitch quickly disappeared, like the momentary smile when a friend says something kind and the weight of grief is lifted for a second. Long, even chords in the orchestra, textured with smatterings of tremolo and fast upward scales, gave the sense of plodding through life. In one memorable passage, the solo violins played harmonics in counterpoint, then the orchestra took up the harmonics as the soloists switched to pizzicato.
For the “Exuberant” finale, Shaham entered with a galloping pizzicato against Anthony’s fleet bowing. The rousing syncopation indicated glimmers of hope; this truly felt like a dance, not just nervous energy. After an extremely complicated, fast duet, the whole orchestra joined in with impossibly complex layers of accentuation. By the end of the dance, there’s unabashed happiness.
Dorman has found a way to communicate an essential part of the human condition in a work that is highly listenable even without our knowing the subtext. The only reason this wonderful piece might not achieve the popularity it deserves is that so few chamber ensembles could play it well. One hopes the strings from major orchestras will give it a try.
Anne E. Johnson, Originally published by Classical Voice North America on April 10, 2025.
Performances
- World Premiere:
Tuesday, April 8, 2025 - 7:30 PM
Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
Featuring Gil Shaham, Adele Anthony, and Sejong Soloists Chamber Orchestra - West Coast Premiere:
Saturday, May 17, 2025 - 3:00 PM
The Granada Theatre
Featuring Gil Shaham, Adele Anthony, and the Santa Barbara Symphony conducted by Nir Kabaretti