paperback, ca. 320 pp., Format 14,2 x 21 cm, (= studia slavica musicologica, vol. 33),
music. illus., price:  ca. 49,95 EUR (Germany), 51,45 EUR (Austria), 98,00 CHF (other countries), ISBN 3-928864-96-3

The book by Yulia Kreinin is dedicated to Mark Kopytman, one of the foremost modern Israeli composers. This first monograph on his work consists of analytical essays which examine the composer's style, various dialogues with him, and Kopytman's articles on composition, included his innovative research on heterophony (1982-1989).

The composer describes heterophony as "a musical event existing in our imagination." He was captivated by Paul Klee's drawing from his "Pedagogical Sketchbook," entitled "Two secondary lines moving around an imaginary main line." Kopytman is confident that the same concept can be applied to heterophonic texture, which became his main field of experimentation since his immigration to Israel (1972). From that moment Kopytman's music was influenced by the rich heterophony of Jewish folk and synagogue music, with their inexhaustible blending of voice variants. His close contacts with Oriental Jewish musical roots, combined with his profound knowledge of modern Western trends, became the basis of Kopytman's individualized and very impressive stylistic synthesis. . Expressiveness of melodic lines, fluctuation between lyric cantilena and narrative dramatic gestures, richness of orchestral colors stamp the imaginative world of his music. In fact, worldwide critics highly acclaimed him as "one of the fairly rare breed of modern composers: his music is both advanced and ethnically/culturally identifiable" (Fanfare Magazine).

Born in 1929 in Kamenetz-Podolsk (Ukraine), the composer lived and worked in the former USSR until the 1970’s. During the Soviet years, his music was never played abroad; but, after coming to Israel, Kopytman soon gained wide international recognition. In 1986 he was awarded the Koussevitzky International Record Critics Award for his orchestral work “Memory”; that year the award was split between Witold Lutoslawski (for his Third Symphony) and Mark Kopytman. Since then, Kopytman's compositions have been performed all over the world – the United States, Europe, Australia, South America, Japan, and Korea, and - since the 1990’s - in the former Soviet Union as well, after a ban of 20 years.

Yulia Kreinin graduated from the Moscow Conservatoire (1971), and immigrated to Israel  in 1994.  Since 1996 she has been a lecturer in the Department of Musicology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  She published the first Russian-language monograph on Max Reger (Moscow, 1991) and the first Russian-language collection of essays on Gyorgy Ligeti (Moscow, 1993); she has also contributed to the studies of Witold Lutoslawski, Wolfgang Rihm, and of Russian and Israeli composers of the 20th century.

ISBN 3-928864-96-3

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