Yitzhak Yedid Solo piano composition Full Moon Fantasy

 Article by Abby Rabinovitz (1999)

 

Yitzhak Yedid is a promising young pianist and composer. His music is pure and from the heat. Deceptively simple, he reaches out to the listener and touches a place deep within. Drawing from his Israeli roots, Yedid creates haunting modal melodies which weave their way through rich, sometimes surprising, harmonic tapestries. Jazz Classical and Middle Eastern images are juxtaposed. There is a sense of shifting universes, a dreamlike state where one emotional landscape flows into another.

 

This CD begins with a plaintive melody of morning, "Remembering Yitzhak Rabin." It is a piece of great sorrow. I imagine a cantor singing, phrase cascading over phrase, crying out for answers. Hope and dreams coexist with a quiet despair.

"Mohe Bhool Gaye Sanwariya" is a classic North Indian film song written by the great composer Naushad Ali. Yedid takes fragments of Naushad Ali's melody and uses them as a springboard for his improvisation. He opens with a drone in the left hand, evoking the Indian tamboura. Against this background a Sarod like melody unfolds, inspired by the North Indian raga Bhairav. The mood is abruptly shattered by a high figure in the right hand, someone knocking on the door, calling us away.

We leave India briefly as fragment from another world intrude, only to return again and again. It is an intriguing performance, restless and unsettling.

The open phrase of "the pessimist optimist" provides a striking contrast.

The impressionistic lines are strongly rooted in the west. The composition is wistful and romantic. It stays on my mind long after I've stooped listening, lines remembered at odd moments throughout the day. Yedid plays with yearning and great tenderness. (the optimist is no fool but he or she is an optimist nonetheless.) "Full Moon Fantasy" is not only the next piece but also the title of the album. I asked Yedid what it meant. He explained that the full moon is a very important day of the month. There is a belief that on this day you get what you wish for. This is a very beautiful composition with echoes of a Chopin nocturne. As the piece draws to close there is a sense of anticipation." From Imagination to Reality" contains some of the darkest and most powerful music on the album. There is a harshness but also a delicacy in Yedid's playing that touches me deeply. When I first heard this composition I had the image of being lost in clouds. Each time I parted one, another and I was unable to find my way home. The themes of the album converge in the last piece, "Le'emor." This is Yedid's final statement, a summing up. The cantor reappears. Arabic phrases mesh with dense harmonies. The music flows and Yedid builds to a climax with conviction. Questions unanswered and yet, somehow, a hard won resolution. At least, or now, a moment of peace.