135 Israeli Composers La Folia – Theme and Variations for Piano La Folia has a long history. Its distinctive chords first developed out of the folk music of late 15thCentury Portugal, where it was played in popular festivals. Its name – ‘folly’ or ‘madness’ in Italian – refers to the frenzied way peasants twirled to the music. The form captured the imagination of many great composers who have written masterpieces in this style from the Renaissance to the 20th century in a long Folia tradition. When I came to write my La Folia, I set myself the goal of creating a work which hopefully can take its place with the great existing works, continue the tradition and drive it onward, bringing in fresh new ideas that have not yet been put forward, in an original and personal way. The work has 15 variations which reveal a gallery of musical styles, versatile rhythms and rich advanced harmonic language with timbres inspired by French, Russian, and Armenian music and contemporary jazz. The classical structure is deconstructed and expanded, sometimes using only a motif or fragment from the original theme while thematic relations are slowly formed between the variations. Although the work was written during the Covid-19 lockdown, it offers an optimistic view: the ’madness’ is mostly expressed by the freedom of the variations which have an improvisatory feel and flow. The last variation serves as a kind of summary relying on ideas from previous variations which brings the work to a satisfying and impressive ending.
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