Title:	Before the Mountains Were Born
Duration:	16`
Year of composition:	2005
First performance:	Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra / Andrey Boreyko
	Oct 12-14 2005, Liederhalle, Stuttgart
Publisher:	Universal Edition

The title of the piece "Before the Mountains Were Born" comes from Psalm 90. In 1997, Psalm 104 was the inspiration for my orchestral piece "Wings of the Wind". Upon reading this Psalm very distinct and strong images formed in my mind and it was the memory of these images that I had in mind while composing the work.

My interest in the texts of the Psalms has been reflected in a number of my compositions over years. In 2003, a line from Psalm 94 (freely translated from the Russian version of the Bible) gave me a title to another orchestral work "The Kingdom of Silence".

When the RSO Stuttgart approached me with a suggestion to write a new piece for their 2005-2006 concert season, featuring their absolutely amasing woodwind group, the time seemed right to use my third "favourite" Psalm. Not being as descriptive as Psalm 104, it doesn`t give the music a possibility to follow the text closely, word for word. Instead it`s a persistent prayer, where the thoughts of an human being appealing to the superior power are passing in a rather quick tempo. There is also a very romantic picture of this power in the beginning of the Psalm:

Lord, you have been our dwelling place througout all generations.
Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you
are God....

"Before the Mountains Were Born" starts as a "regular" orchestral piece. Later four woodwind players (first player of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons each) are leaving their regular seats and move towards separate stands. These separate stands shall be placed in front of the orchestra as if four soloists were playing. After their virtuoso "cadenza", the reverse process begins. Towards the end they are joining the woodwind group "musically" again. The piece can also be performed as a regular orchestral piece, if the size of the stage or some other circumstances do not allow the soloists to come forward during the piece.

This concerto is dedicated to conductor Andrey Boreyko whose warm and sincere enthusiasm for my music has brought it to different places in Europe and around the world during the last five years, and the RSO Stuttgart.