from below to above (מלמטה למעלה) [2022]

General Information

Commissioner: The Zodiac International Festival
Written: May – June, 2022
Duration: ca. 7.5’
Instrumentation: Bb cl + vln + vcl + pno

Performance History

July 14, 2022: Melissa Frisch (clarinet), Chloe Yang (violin), Isabelle Nichols (cello), and Bella Berman (piano) at the Zodiac Music Festival, Valdeblore, France (World Premiere)

Perusal Score

~ This score below is intended for perusal purposes only, and may not be used for performance. To obtain performance materials, please click here. Thank you! ~

Program Note

In Summer 2022, I traveled to Israel with a group of fellow Yale students. On the Shabbat we spent in Jerusalem, we went to the home of a renowned Kabbalah scholar, where we studied a portion of the Zohar (a mystical Jewish text, written in Aramaic, in Spain in the 1300s). One passage struck me in particular. This piece, in which the musical material is constantly spinning around itself, reflects the neverending drawing "from below to above" that, in the passage, keeps each and every one of us alive today:

דהא בני ישראל קיימי לתתא. לאתפתחא ארחין, ולאנהרא שבילין, ולאדלקה בוצינין, ולקרבא כלא מתתא לעילא למהוי כלא חד, ובגיני כך כתיב (דברים ד) ׳ואתם הדבקים ביי אלהיכם חיים כלכם היום.

"For the Children of Israel exist below to open ways, to illumine paths, to kindle lamps, and to draw everything from below to above, so that all will be one. Therefore it is written: 'You, cleaving to the Lord your God, are alive every one of you today!''' - Zohar Vol. II, 181b

Recording available upon request. Please use the contact form linked in the menu above, or email me at ben.beckman@yale.edu.