Lizkor VeLishkoach (to Remember and to Forget) was commissioned by the Villa Bernau, Switzerland and premiered by the Basler Quartet.

Lizkor VeLishkoach (to Remember and to Forget) is a piece that is to be played together with Franz Schubert’s Quartet in G Major D887. Lizkor VeLishkoach (Hebrew for “to remember and to forget”) forms it’s meaning from the roots of the words of its title. The root of “Lizkor” is “zecher”, which means both “memory” and “imprint.” Embedded within the verb “Lishkoach” is the word “Koach” meaning “power.” In composing this piece I wished to explore these concepts that are not only grounded in the Hebrew language but have further manifested themselves in the course of time and “imprinted” themselves within subjective and collective memory.

Henri Bergson has described the process of memory in the following way: “Practically, we perceive only the past, the pure present being the invisible progress of the past gnawing into the future.” The most obvious “past” of  Lizkor VeLishkoach (to Remember and to Forget) is the first movement of Franz Schubert’s String Quartet in G major D 887. Schubert’s Quartet employs memory in a radical manner by means of his unconventional synthesis of sonata and variation form. The first movement of Schubert’s quartet employs sections of directed, teleological movement as well as sections of relative variational stasis. I have divided my own composition into two parts: these serve to comment on the form and temporality of Schubert’s quartet. Not only the form of Schubert’s quartet is re-collected but actual citations of Schubert’s quartet surface in the course of the work (much like people or ghosts passing by an open window). In this way I have not only re-membered Schubert’s music but also reacted to my own re-membering and forgetting within the context of this chosen form. I am gratefully indebted to Harald Helfgott, who was then a Princeton Graduate student in the Math Department, for his help with the calculations for the temporal structure of this piece.

Recording by Speculum Musicae: Curtis Macomber, Carol Zeavin, Violins Lois Martin, Viola, Eric Bartlett, Cello. Performed at Princeton University, May 2001.  Commissioned by the Villa Bernau, Switzerland,

Lizkor Velishkoach (To Remember and to Forget)

Salvim (Quails) performed by Joanna Hood on January 12, 2012

The Composition is based on the following Hebrew text from Numbers chapter 11:
31. A wind went forth from the Lord and swept quails from the sea and spread them over the camp about one day's journey this way and one day's journey that way, around the camp, about two cubits above the ground.
32. The people rose up all that day and all night and the next day and gathered the quails. [Even] the one who gathered the least collected ten heaps. They spread them around the camp in piles.
33. The meat was still between their teeth; it was not yet finished, and the anger of the Lord flared against the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very mighty blow.
34. He named that place Kivroth Hata'avah [Graves of Craving], for there they buried the people who craved.

Salvim (Quails)

Klangbeispiele der Sendung Komponieren als Erweiterung des Bewusstseins – Der Ethica-Kompositionszyklus

11 Dániel Péter Biró: Scholium 2, X. Sokharim (Ausschnitt), SCHOLA Heidelberg, ensemble aisthesis

10 Dániel Péter Biró: Asher Hotseti Etkhem , Neue Vocalsolisten, SWR Experimentalstudio

Dániel Péter Biró: Kilkul (Breakdown) 
Performed by Kris Covlin
The Hebrew word “Kilkul” means breakdown but can also refer to spiritual problems, sickness or internal disorder. In the beginning of the composition, motivic elements “break down,” their harmonic spectra and microtonal basis coming to the perceptual foreground. In this process the player slowly “recovers” from a state of panic to discover once again the basic source of sound production – the breath of life.

Kilkul (Breakdown)

Sefirot (Emanations)
for Seven Voices and Twenty Instruments
Performed by the Schola Heidelberg and Ensemble Aisthesis
at the University of Heidelberg on October 16, 2015
Commissioned by the Klangforum Heidelberg

Sefirot Emanations)

Dániel Péter Biró is a Canadian, Hungarian, American composer and Professor for Composition at the Grieg Academy, University of Bergen, Norway.

Dániel Péter Biró

Popular tracks