Music for Flute and String Orchestra

Yoav Talmi composed his first work, Music for Flute and String Orchestra in 1965, upon graduating from the Rubin Academy of Music in Tel Aviv. Written at the age of 22, the new work won the “Boskovich Prize for Composition” in that same year. The work opens with a dramatic Prologue for flute solo, which leads as it ends very softly into the opening of the first movement –Yearnings, with the entrance of the violins and violas. It is a slow movement that expresses longing in a broad improvisational manner. The dramatic motive of the solo Prologue appears towards the end, creating a moment of agitation, but this soon calms down and the movement dies into silence. A solo Interlude, extracted from the Prelude, leads into the second movement – “A Whim”. The character of this movement is contrary to the first one. It is a quick and witty movement, based on an Ostinato theme in five four, displays first in Pizzicato by the basses and cellos. On top of that obstinate theme, which repeats itself throughout the movement, the flute forms a cheerful, clownish counter theme that develops in a counterpoint way in different directions. The duration of the composition is circa10 minutes. The premiere of “Music for Flute and String Orchestra” took place at the Juilliard School in New York in 1968, with flutist Er’ella Talmi (the composers wife, to whom the piece is dedicated) and the Juilliard String Ensemble lead by Yoav Talmi.