Tohu Va-Vohu

Instrumentation: 2(II=picc).2.2(II=bcl).2(II=dbn) - 4.2.2.1 - timp.perc(3):crot/vib/tub.bells/sus.cym/tam-t/BD - strings + optional live electronics. Rearrangements availible by request.

Tohu Va-Vohu is a seven-minute work for full orchestra and live electronics, written for the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra. The title — Hebrew for the formless void of Genesis 1:2 — is drawn from a passage in the Zohar, the central text of Jewish Kabbalah, which reads the Torah as a poetic instrument capable, with sustained study, of granting access to and influence over existence. The work treats the orchestra as a body of letters and vowels moving behind the melody of the cantillation, as the Zohar describes; the live electronics extend that melody by drawing it into prolonged, undulating shapes.

Program Note

Selections from The Zohar

The earth was ‫תהו ובהו‬ (tohu va-vohu), chaos and void (Genesis 1:2) — dregs of an inkwell in seepage. For at first it existed but did not endure: was already later enduring.

In forty-two letters the world was engraved and endured, all of them crowning the holy name. The enlightened will shine like the ‫זהר‬ (zohar), radiance, of the sky (Daniel 12:3) — like musical intonations, whose melody is followed by the letters and vowels, undulating after them like troops behind their king.

The letters are body; the vowels, spirit. All of them range in motion after the intonations and halt with them. When the melody of the intonation moves, letters and vowels follow; when it stops, they do not move but stand in place. The enlightened will shine — letters and vowels. Like the ‫זהר‬ (zohar), radiance — melody of the notes. Of the sky — extension of the melody, like those extending, prolonging the melody.

And those who lead many to righteousness — pausal notes, halting their movement, as a result of which the word is heard. Will shine — letters and vowels shining as one on their journey into a mystery of concealment, a journey on concealed paths. From this all expands.