Yitzhak Yedid - Out to Infinity

Helping to enrich the harp's repertoire with new music, the Israel competition commissioned a piece for solo harp from the Israeli composer Yitzhak Yedid, which all the contestants were required to play on the first stage.  When I first received the score in the mail, I was delighted to find a whole page of performance notes included at the beginning.  What I love about modern music is that each new piece is created with its own, unique language of musical expression.  I think it is a great thing to constantly be exploring new languages for the harp, in the interest of finding those that are most natural to the instrument and which best exploit the harp's particular qualities.  However, this is also what makes learning modern music hard.  Fortunately, Out to Infinity is full of imagery that helps the performer to interpret the feeling of each section.  Within the score, there are labels - Prelude, Hidden wisdom, A kind and gentle voice, Fragments of dance... - and the preface further helps to illuminate what is intended by these titles - "Like an echo, appearing after a loud mysterious noise whose origins are unknown to you, so the composition begins in The Hidden Wisdom; it seems to simulate a heart beat, ticking quickly, perhaps from fright, perhaps from astonishment."  The music is written in a harpistic way, so that it is not hard to figure out how he wishes the piece to be played.  Its main technical difficulty lies in the passages of extremely fast, repetitious notes and in the closing section, where both hands must strain to reach the lowest registers of the harp, but it is possible to play, and there is room for a wide range of expression!

Mr. Yedid attended the entire first stage of the competition, during which he video-taped several of the contestants.  You can find ten different performances of his piece on the YouTube page he created for this purpose.

Tell me about the inception of Out to Infinity.  How did you come to be commissioned to write this piece for the competition?

It was about three years ago when I received a message from the harp contest that the artistic jury (they are different people from the other jury - mostly composers like Serge Natra and Ami Ma'ayani) decided to commission a piece for a solo harp from three Israeli composers, for the 50th anniversary of the harp contest.  Based on a blind review of the three pieces, they chose one to be the compulsory piece.  I think they asked me because I was awarded the prestigious 2006 Israeli prime minister prize for composers.  I was the youngest among the three composers.   I was of course pleased with the commission.

I wished to compose something really new, to bring a different sound from the harp, and for sure not to go for the typical sound that is associated with the harp.  So I decided to compose a piece in which the harpist would also use the piano strings, which would be prepared in advance with the sustaining pedal pressed for the whole piece.  I actually started the piece, but I had to ask my harpist friend a technical question and she told me that probably the harp contest woouldn't agree to such an idea.  I phoned the contest and they rejected it totally!

At that time, I had just moved to Queensland in Australia, and my wife and I stayed for a month in a tiny studio apartment on a noisy road in a guest house without a piano.  It was there where I composed the piece.  The infinity concept is about thoughts and imagination that one has in such a remote and beautiful place but so far away from his/her usual place.

What kinds of music most influence your compositional style?

Listening to my music, in a way is like watching a film - there is a story and images.  Some images may sound like an Alfred Hitchcock film (like the opening chord), but within the same piece I could also have images of an Arabic singing ritual.

Had you ever composed for the harp before writing this piece?

I hadn't composed for the harp before so I sat at a library for a few days and went through scores.  I especially researched S. Natra and L. Berio.

Did you consult with a harpist during the creation of the piece?

I actually met with a harpist only after I had completed most of the piece.   I wanted someone to check it and also wanted to hear how it sounded, so I googled to see if there was a harpist in the area.   It happened to be that a great harpist, Sebastien Lipman, who also participated in the contest in the past (was in the final) and was for many years the harpist of the great Berlin Philharmonic, lives in Brisbane.  So I phoned him; he was surprised but very welcoming.  He read through the piece from the manuscript - I compose only on paper with a pencil, no computer - and said it is not a easy piece at all, and contestants will have to invest lots of time to put together the non-legato, two-hands, tick-tak concept.  He gave me some notation suggestions.  Thanks to him, I was able to make it very clear how I wished it to sound.  After that I also had a great harpist from Israel, Gitit Boasson, to help me edit the piece before it was printed by the Israeli Music Institute.

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Yitzhak Yedid is a "composer of classical music but also a pianist of improvised music."  He has released eight CDs with the German Label BTL and with International Challenge records.  He makes his living from composing commissions and performances as a pianist with his ensemble.  Currently, he is completing his PhD research at Monash University in Melbourne.