Description
Preface by Ronn Yedidia
Ether, composed in 1996, is an imaginary journey in which a mysterious protagonist emerges from the mists and strides through a mythical landscape. Its dark chordal shades and slow, persistent rhythm suggest a state of unconsciousness, a struggle for awakening and finally, a glorious resolution. Structurally, the work is basically a chorale, at first in four voices, later augmenting to five, then eight, and finally expanding to as many as twenty-four voices in the form of broken chords across the entire keyboard. Harmonically vague at the start, it reaches tonal ground in the key of F, and soon after modulates to the key of B-flat which dominates from that point until the end. Ether is concerned with the question of human solitude within the monumental cosmos. Constantly moving forward, it captures both delicate and profound changes in the “state of mind”, yet underlying it all is a lack of true resolution, and the sense that the spiritual journey is an unending quest.
