Heart of the World is dedicated to the memory of of Raymond Benjamin, husband of Metuka Benjamin, a renowned educator both in Los Angeles with the Stephen S. Wise Temple Schools and in Israel. Ray was a great lover of music and strong supporter of Israel. I remember him as remarkably humble and highly educated. The title of this piece comes from a Hebrew poem by Avraham Ben Yitzhak called "Blessed are they that sow but do not reap":

Blessed are they who know

their hearts will cry out from the wilderness

and that quiet will blossom from their lips.

Blessed are these

for they will be gathered to the heart of the world...

The image of a thrown stone creating ripples in a pond preoccupied me, with its associations of reverberation and disintegration. And in fact, the piece both begins and ends with chords struck in various repetitive patterns to evoke ripples. An even more obvious theme is a nostalgia for the beauty and direct expression of Baroque musical textures, evident in clear tonal structure and melodic decoration and textures. In a quest for simplicity, a simple sad waltz in g minor dominates the entire work. The piano develops this melody and turns it upsidedown in a more impassioned middle section. The violin interrupts several times with soloistic lines reminiscent of Vivaldi. At the climax, the violin soars over a melodramatic waltz variation until the music ultimately disintegrates back into the ripples with which it began. Heart of the World is approximately 10 minutes. It is available in two versions: a work for violin solo and chamber orchestra, and a duo for violin and piano. The two versions are not transcriptions as they differ in several important places in texture and structure.