Dedicated to Hilary Hahn

World Premiere: October 13, 2011, Hilary Hahn, violin, Valentina Lisitsa, piano, Constella Festival, Cincinnati, OH

Composer Note - The inspiration for the piece is the classic 1980’s memory game ‘Simon.’ The original game has four colored buttons, each with a distinct sound and a light bulb behind it. The machine lights a button at random and plays its sound and expects the player to press the same button in response. If the player is successful, the machine repeats the first button and randomly adds another button to the sequence. Therefore, as the game progresses the sequences become longer and more difficult to remember and reproduce.

So, technically, ‘Simon’ composes a little piece every time a game is played- there’s a limited number of notes added sequentially to each other at random making the selection seem very logical. Coincidentally, the ‘Simon’ pitches are A,D,G,A – overlapping 3 of the Violin’s open strings in a different order.

In Memory Games a similar process occurs around two different patterns that are introduced in measures 1 and 19 respectively. Several rounds of the game are played throughout the piece, so to speak, making it resemble the form of the Passacaglia (or variations on a bass line).

- Avner Dorman

Reviews

After intermission, Hahn filled the hall with Bach, her tone at its richest all evening. Avner Dorman’s labyrinthine “Memory Games,” based on the memory game Simon, and Gillian Whitehead’s “Torua,” written in the wake of New Zealand’s Christchurch earthquake, offered gorgeous and palatable social and historical commentary.

Erica Zora Wrightson, Los Angeles Times, 02/11/2011

The best of the lot, as far as suitability for an end-of-concert confection contrast, were Jennifer Higdon’s Echo Dash (which came fourth), a non-stop, joyous, rhythmically infectious workout for both instruments, and the first-half closer, Israeli composer Avner Dorman’s Memory Games, whose aggressive opening gambit was close to jazz-rock, with its back-and-forth modal harmonies and booty-shaking syncopations.

Greg Stepanich, Palm Beach ArtsPaper, 08 November 2011.

My favorite of the evening was “Memory Games” by Israeli composer Avner Dorman, inspired by the digital toy “Simon.” First introduced in 1978 and popular during the 1980s, Simon challenges the player to repeat a random sequence of tones by pressing the right sequence of buttons, adding a new tone to the end of the sequence with each successful iteration. “Several rounds of the game are played throughout the piece, so to speak,” writes the composer in his description, “making it resemble the form of a Passacaglia.” It's an energetic, engaging composition which would be welcomed on many a new music concert.

Mark Gresham, http://earrelevant.blogspot.com/

Avner Dorman’s Memory Games was a jazzy, rhythmic burst of virtuosity for both violin and piano, with a repeated motif that got more and more frantic as it gained energy.

South Florida Classical Review - By David Fleshler