Prayer

Rami Bar-Niv, born December 1, 1945 in Tel Aviv, is an Israeli pianist, composer, author, and instructor of master classes. He is a graduate of the Rubin Academy of Music in Tel Aviv, where he studied piano with Karol Klein and composition with Paul Ben-Haim, Alexander Boskovitch, and Ödön Pártos. He won a grant from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation in 1966 to continue his studies at Mannes College of Music in the United States, where he studied with Nadia Reisenberg and with the theorist Carl Schachter. During the summer of 1968, Bar-Niv studied with duo pianists Vronsky & Babin.

Bar-Niv has performed in concerts worldwide and was the first Israeli musician to perform in Egypt after the 1979 peace treaty with Israel. In 1989, received the annual "Best Performer Award" from the Israeli government.

Bar-Niv's compositions have been published by the Israel Music Institute, Israel Music Publications, AndreA, and Or-Tav Publication.

"Prayer" was composed in June of 1982, and was revised in August of 2008. It is: "Dedicated to Stephen Best."

Stephen Best (b. 1946) has been Minister of Music at First Presbyterian Church in New York and instructor at Hamilton College. He is quite well-known for his compositions.

"Prayer" is quite an effective and striking piece. It sounds like it was created in the piano idiom, but transfers successfully to the organ.

My first try with this work was to record it on the Esztergom, intending to make use of the huge acoustic to create the desired "atmospheric result" that I was seeking. However, I really wasn't satisfied with the outcome, so, I tried it again on Salisbury, which produced a far superior result.

You'll need to be creative with this, but a good performance will produce a uniquely moving result.

The score is attached below, as well as two photos of Rami Bar-Niv, and one of Stephen Best, the dedicatee.