Yefei Nof

Yefei Nof for Unaccompanied Flute by Yardena Alotin

Dedication: To James Galway

Yefei Nof, written in 1978, draws on an earlier work by the composer written for choir a cappella to the text of Psalm 48 “Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth…,” which speaks of the beauty of Jerusalem, the Holy City.
In this, the composer complied with the request of James Galway to write a short Israeli piece for flute solo. The work was first performed by the Israeli flutist Hanoch Tel-Oren in the USA at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., on August 1, 1980. It was premiered in Israel by James Galway on February 2, 1982 at the Mann Auditorium, Tel Aviv.

Yardena Alotin (1930-1994) was the only well known Israeli female composer of her generation. She studied with Partos (also with Boskovich, Seter, Ben-Haim), and in 1975-6 she served as composer in residence at Bar-Ilan University. In addition to her often performed piano pieces, such as Suite (piano, 1974), her modest oeuvre also includes choir works such as Yefei Nof (1952), Psalm 133 (1965), and Holiday Song (1984). These follow the Mediterranean style in its early and later developments. She wrote her two major works in 1958, early in her career: Cantata, a cappella, and The Painful Exile for voice and orchestra, both performed soon after they were written.