Delusions of War

 

Current tragic events of the continuing unresolved conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and of the ongoing brutal battles in Syria have influenced my composition Delusions of War. Delusions of War is a commentary on political/religious problems that continue to find no resolution. The music aims to make the listeners “feel” the human suffering that the war causes, and, without assuming to have answers, to encourage them to pause for a moment and to envisage better ways than force to resolve crises. The music captures emotions of anger and fear, and feelings of sorrow, tragedy and righteousness.

 

I believe that a false conception of life leads to bloody conflicts. A common tendency is to think of one side as the victim and the other as the aggressor, and under this perception, each side justifies its position and the use of violence. This justification lies in delusions and a false conception that war ends the conflict and solves the problems. Each side tries to “break” the other side by using greater force, but as recent events can testify, wars and victories do not resolve the problems, they deepen the animosity, intensify the hostility and hatred and increase the tragedy. 

 

Delusions of War, orchestrated for 22 string instruments, consists of seventeen major sections (musical images) in Part One and ten major sections in Part Two. These sections syntheses and superimposes various approaches and compositional techniques that contrast with each other and often convey extreme changes. Approaches and compositional techniques include a perpetuum mobile toccata, heterophonic textures, canonic textures, as well as the use of Maqamat to semblance classical Arabic melodic lines, imitation of the human voice and improvisation out of ordered pitch collections.

 

Yitzhak Yedid 

August 2014