Haftorah for solo Piano
At age 12, I decided not to have a bar mitzvah, but I listened to many of my friends chant the tropes of their Haftorah on the bimah. A Haftorah is a reading from the Book of Prophets. Chanting the Haftorah is a rite of passage for a bar mitzvah. Those tropes, or melodic hooks, seeped into me. I still struggle with my 12 year old choice. There is profound meaning and awe in this ritual to join the adult community in a tradition that spans thousands of years. There is also a weight to carrying its never-ending contradictions and its yoke of 613 commandments.
These two piano pieces meditate on those tropes. Haftorah I presents the trope as a virtuoso toccata of emotions—joyful, playful, and even righteously disputatious. Haftorah II goes deeper and probes the mystery behind the celebration, slowing the tropes way down into moody, hypnotic meditation.
Pianist Yevgeniy Milyavskiy premieres Haftorah to open my Russell Steinberg Ensemble concert Thursday May 14, 8pm at Thayer Hall in the Colburn School of Music across from Disney Hall.