“Postel and Efrati asked me to write the music for Ein Dor. I’d worked with many choreographers, and Efrati was one of the most focused. It was as if he knew the music and wanted to create it all by himself. The music was based on the biblical story. He had ideas and we had conversations, and then the process of music writing began. Efrati described an essence, an atmosphere. For example, tension, in the beginning when Saul goes to the sorceress, and then the music builds up in order to express the tension in dance, or lyricism or surprise. He would construct the movements in a certain order, and dictate exact duration: 2-3 minutes with dense intensive motion, 2-3 minutes of freer and more relaxed, then a sudden question mark, a feeling of uncertainty as to what was going to happen, the feeling of something quiet lingering behind the scenes.
For Ein Dor I used a string quartet, wind instruments and several percussion. Efrati was at the recording, the musicians were from the Philharmonic and the recording was at Heichal Hatarbut. One of the parts, 4-5 minutes, didn’t fit Efrati’s image, so I rewrote it, and the choreographic work began after the music had been recorded. Efrati was a choreographer of tension, contrasts and anticipation. Ein Dor is an illustrative dance, a dramatic dance, an expression for words, a story, and a psychological condition.
I remember I got a fair, one-time payment. I think there was a contract, but there were no royalties. There are only royalties when there’s a special contract, but the rights for the music are mine. Sometime when writing music for dance companies there are two exclusive years and then the rights go back to the musician. As far as I know, Acum no longer allow the selling of lifetime rights.”
Zvi Avni, Composer, Ein Dor 1970, Pace & Step Together 1971, Lyric Episodes 1972, Moon Full 1972, Meditation on an Open Stage 1978