Ḥalil (Bernstein)

Ḥalil is scored for solo flute, piccolo and alto flute, timpani, five percussionists (four snare drums, bass drum, four tom toms, a pair of cymbals, high and low crash cymbals, high and low gongs, chimes, tam-tam, high and low triangles, four woodblocks, whip, xylophone, glockenspiel, and vibraphone), harp, and strings. In the 1987 version for flute, piano, and percussion the timpani becomes optional and the keyboard percussion parts (xylophone, glockenspiel, and vibraphone) are eliminated. Bernstein notes, “Piccolo and Alto Flute, in the orchestral version, must sound from a distance and be unseen."

In the score to Ḥalil, Bernstein writes:

This work is dedicated ‘To the spirit of Yadin and to his fallen brothers…
Ḥalil (the Hebrew word for ‘flute’) is formally unlike any other work I have written, but is like much of my music in its struggle between tonal and non-tonal forces. In this case, I sense that struggle as involving wars and the threat of wars, the overwhelming desire to live, and the consolations of art, love and the hope for peace. It is a kind of night-music, which, from its opening 12-tone row to its ambiguously diatonic final cadence, is an ongoing conflict of nocturnal images: wish-dreams, nightmares, repose, sleeplessness, night-terrors and sleep itself, Death’s twin brother. I never knew Yadin Tannenbaum, but I know his spirit.[3]

While Bernstein dabbled in dodecaphonic writing in Kaddish and Dybbuk, Ḥalil is rooted in twelve-tone techniques. The flute solo falls silent near the end of the work, as if to suggest the wastefulness of Yadin’s death, and the alto flute embedded within the orchestra or placed off stage plays a duet with the solo viola. Halil was received well by critics; the horror that Bernstein attempted to convey was heard. A Washington Tribune critic commented, “[Ḥalil is] a brooding, terrific element which whispers of nightmares and nameless horrors.”[4]