DOCSLIB.ORG

121. THIRD MOVEMENT 'German' Exiles Transform Classical Music In

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
121. THIRD MOVEMENT 'German' Exiles Transform Classical Music In 1 121. THIRD MOVEMENT 1932-1938 ‘German’ exiles transform classical music in the Mandate The push From its inception the Nazi Party stressed the importance of music to sway ‘the masses.’ In Mein Kampf Hitler, following Wagner’s vitriolic pronouncements,1 recounted his thunderstruck pre-teen reaction to Lohengrin, proclaiming such music the essence of “German-ness.” The Party appropriated convenient excerpts from Wagner and other “pure Germans” for demonstrations, marches and rallies. In January 1933 the future Führer conspicuously visited Wagner’s Leipzig birthplace for memorials surrounding the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death. Soon he made Bayreuth attendance compulsory for senior Party officials.2 Much Nazi music was not so elevated. But as S.A. marching songs like Wenn der judenblut vom messer spritzt 3 confirmed, the universal theme was that poisonous ‘un-volkish’ music must be extinguished. Joseph Goebbels, new Minister of Enlightenment, saw this cleansing as one of the Third Reich’s crucial tasks. Within a month of the NSDAP’s accession he established the Chamber of Culture with its reichsmusikammer, charged not only with licensing acceptable musicians but with supervising all music in Germany, from elementary school instruction through home records and concert halls. A month later thousands of Jewish musicians at universities and city orchestras found themselves unemployed under the Law for the Protection of the Civil Service. In 1934 Jewish music and musicians were banned in public. Thick directories of prohibited Jewish works and performers appeared, complete with blank pages for personalized updates. The 1935 Nuremberg Laws expanded the ban to half-Jews and quarter-Jews, decimating even performers whose grandparents had converted. In spring 1938 a large Dusseldorf exhibit of “Degenerate [German] Music” followed the better-known 1937 Munich premiere of “Degenerate [German] Art.”4 That November, kristallnacht’s horrors put an end to lingering illusions, © 2016 and proprietary information of Michael H. & Nora Jean Levin. All rights reserved. 2 especially for some 20,000 resident Jewish ‘subjects’ hustled to Dachau or Buchenwald – and offered release if they promptly left Germany.5 These developments not only stunned long-established German Jews. They struck at the core of their cultural identity, which largely revolved around concert subscriptions and regular hausmusik recitals in their homes. The pull Between 1932 and 1938 some 50,000 German Jews plus another 20,000 German-educated Jewish refugees from countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia reached Palestine. This wave – the so-called Fifth Aliyah, or aliyah germanit -- was less than half of all immigration to the Mandate during that desperate time. But its impact on the yishuv’s music transcended statistics. Because they mostly packed and left in a compressed group the new, relatively well-off arrivals often brought everything with them. This included not only phonograph collections, classical or modern music scores, music-patronage traditions, and boatloads of bulky pianos they could not bear to leave. It included hundreds of highly-trained concert soloists, orchestra musicians and conductors, plus recognized European composers like Paul ben-Haim (born Frankenburger), Joseph Tal (born Gruenthal), Marc Lavry (born Levin), Erich Sternberg and Alexander Boskovich.6 Importantly, it included the new immigrants’ habits and their critical mass – thousands of patrons willing and able to support classical music initiatives that previously had limped or foundered under the Mandate. In 1935 the Polish-German violin virtuoso Bronislaw Huberman began to organize a permanent Palestine symphony orchestra that also could rescue unemployed European talent. He sent agents across central Europe to audition prospects; secured subscription and financial commitments; obtained special music exemptions from Mandate immigration quotas; and managed to import more than 200 top-rate Jewish musicians7 including the violist/composer Odon Partos, who became Rebecca’s friend and nominal Academy boss.8 The rehearsals of Huberman’s Palestine Symphony (later the Israel Philharmonic) were routinely conducted in German, the orchestral common tongue of the time. © 2016 and proprietary information of Michael H. & Nora Jean Levin. All rights reserved. 3 The Orchestra’s 1936 debuts in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem were an international sensation. They were conducted by Arturo Toscanini – as ferocious an anti-fascist as he was a disciplinarian -- who recently had refused to conduct at Bayreuth. Despite Arab unrest and the need to transport personnel in armored busses, they were more than sold out. Thousands who could not get the low-priced tickets trailed the orchestra and surrounded its concert venues.9 Many more listened to its broadcasts in the yishuv alone. That year the Mandate’s Palestine Broadcasting Service (PBS) had begun operating from Jerusalem in three languages, with several hours of daily live music performed by its own studio orchestra plus guest conductors and soloists.10 Its programming chief was another recent German-Jewish immigrant, the pianist, baritone, composer and conductor Karl Solomon.11 With the growth of home radios Solomon’s programs provided a new national venue that built audiences for recitals at theatres or other physical sites. This explosive transformation was not without tensions. The germanit still was displaced and in exile, with the loss, longing and disorientation that condition involved. Added to this was the distress of witnessing what its beloved Germany had become. German-speaking arrivals would keep struggling to locate their heimat (“homeland”). One observer put this succinctly: “There’s no plural for heimat. You can only have one of them.”12 In addition, the new wave was highly-educated, professional, formal and urban – a recipe that gave rise both to innumerable yekkes jokes13 and to deeper clashes with the redemption-through- farming ethos of East European agricultural pioneers. At a practical level the germanit flooded (even as it expanded) the existing job market with fearsome competition, producing the same grievances as those pressed in 1930 by yishuv musicians who petitioned British officials to ban talkies that wiped out silent-film accompaniment.14 And here too, arrivals faced pressures not just to write or play “old” music, but of whether and how their talents should help build a state. Those questions included the unanswerable ones of what constituted “Jewish” or “new Jewish” music, how it should relate to pre-existing Sephardic competitors, and how or when it should be written and performed. As the German-Jewish composer/musicologist Peter Gradenwitz diplomatically put it: © 2016 and proprietary information of Michael H. & Nora Jean Levin. All rights reserved. 4 Not only did they come to a continent which had nothing of the civilization and cultural tradition in which they had grown up but they also soon acquired the feeling that they were called upon to contribute by their very creative work, to the upbuilding of the old- new country. Their previous notions seemed curiously out of place in the new surroundings and acclimatization was imperative.15 For Rebecca the influx was a mixed blessing. The new wave was her cultural compatriots -- trained in the same schools, bound by the same technical and interpretive criteria, serving the same music gods. But it also was the next generation, both avant-garde and beholden to Mandate authorities and the Jewish Agency for entrance visas and other benefits. It went its own way. Wagner, Der Judenthum in der Musik, Leipzig, 1869. © 2016 and proprietary information of Michael H. & Nora Jean Levin. All rights reserved. 5 Prospective Chancellor Hitler listens to Wagner at the Gewandhaus, Leipzig, 18 Jan. 1933. Degenerate Music, exhibit poster and catalogue cover, Dusseldorf, 1938. © 2016 and proprietary information of Michael H. & Nora Jean Levin. All rights reserved. 6 Toscanini at the Dead Sea, Palestine 1936. The Maestro buys a pardess, Tel Aviv, 1936. © 2016 and proprietary information of Michael H. & Nora Jean Levin. All rights reserved. 7 1 E.g., that “mongrel” Oriental Jews had neither a real language, no place in Occidental culture, or any claim to produce “music of the blood.” See, e.g., Das Judentum in der Musik (1850; enlarged 1869; rev. & republished by Heinrich Berl (Deuthsche-Verlags-Anhalt, 1926)) and Wagner’s numerous later writings; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Judenthum_in_der_Musik; http://www.jrbooksonline.com/pdf_books/judaisminmusic.pdf (both accessed 5-25-16). 2 See, e.g., http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/politics-and-propaganda/third-reich/wagner-richard/; “Hitler and Wagner, Daily Telegraph (7-25-2011), _____________________ (both accessed 5-25-16); Irene Heskes, Passport to Jewish Music: Its History, Traditions, and Culture (Greenwood, NY, 1994) Chap. 19, https://books.google.com/books/about/Passport_to_Jewish_Music.html?id=WFpOGhL3qV8C . 3 “When Jewish blood spurts from my knife, then everything goes so well.” 4 See, e.g., https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-features/collections-highlights/julien-bryan/nazi- germany-1937/1937-munich-exhibition-of-degenerate-art ; http://germanhistorydocs.ghi- dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=1578 ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_Art_Exhibition (art); http://www.dw.com/en/the-nazis-take-on-degenerate-music/a-16834697 ; https://explore.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/show/censored/walkthrough/entartete ; http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Jamd Summer 2012-F.Indd
    Highlights 7th Edition Fall 2012 International Board of Governors Meeting - Highlights 2012 Concert Commemorating 80 years of the Academy The meeting of the International working under the supervision of Avi Zehavi. Hagai Rehavia’s arrangement of Board of Governors, which took Abromovich, recipient of the first prize Emanuel Zamir’s song “Bowed Evening” place 4-5.6.2012, opened with a festive in the 2012 Chamber Music Competition, was performed by singer Anna Spitz concert commemorating 80 years of the whose members are violinists Florence and pianist Orel Oshrat. founding of the Jerusalem Academy of von Burg and Anna Kume, violists Dor Later in the evening, an ensemble made Music and Dance. During the evening, Sperber and Nathalie Verdon and cellist up of JAMD faculty members performed Certificates of Inscription from the Elizabeth Cook. The ensemble played a one movement from Haim Alexander’s Academy’s Golden Book were given to movement from Mozart’s Quintet in “Five Movements for Wind Quintet”. devoted teachers. gminor K.516. Playing in the ensemble were Michael The Jerusalem Academy Chamber Choir, Professor Menachem Wiesenberg’s Melzer-flute, Dudu Carmel-oboe, Ilan under the direction of Maestro Stanley Artistic Arrangements class for voice Schul-clarinet, Isaac Leyva-bassoon and Sperber, and joined by baritone Guy and piano was represented by singer Ori Azran-French horn. Pelc, performed the first movement of and arranger Vered Dekel, head of the Also performing in the concert were Paul Ben-Haim’s “Liturgical Cantata” Vocal Division of the Cross-Disciplinary percussionists Yoav Kfir, Li Ye and and the song “White Days”- Shai Hemel’s Music Department, who, together Meir Yaniger; all are students of Alon arrangement of a poem of Leah Goldberg with pianist Guy Frati, performed “I Bor.
    [Show full text]
  • 00 Primeras Paginas Rha5
    RHA, Vol. 5, Núm. 5 (2007), 137-148 ISSN 1697-3305 NON-ASHKENAZIC JEWRY AS THE GROUND OF CONTEMPORARY ISRAELI MULTICULTURALISM Zvi Zohar* Recibido: 4 Septiembre 2007 / Revisado: 2 Octubre 2007 / Aceptado: 20 Octubre 2007 1. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL Sephardic rabbinic authorities branded this deve - BACKGROUND lopment as illegitimate. Later, they realized that In the wake of the Expulsion from Spain not only was such opposition futile, but that many (1492), Sephardic1 Jews gradually settled as Sepharadim were in fact purchasing meat from refugees in many lands, primarily – in areas under Ashkenazic shehita. Thereafter, the Sephardic rab- Ottoman rule. One of these was the Holy Land, bis concentrated on de-legitimizing consumption Eretz Israel, whose Jewish inhabitants until that of such meat by Sepharadim; by and large, this time were mostly indigenous Musta’arabim2. For a campaign also failed, since the “Ashkenazic” pro- variety of reasons, the Musta’arabim gradually duce was less expensive. Ashkenazic influence upon became assimilated to the culture of the Sephardic Sepharadim manifested itself also in other aspects newcomers. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, the of traditional Jewish life – such as recitation of ri - dominant (‘hegemonic’) culture of Jews in Eretz tual benedictions by women, and the adoption by Israel (henceforth: EI) was Sephardic. However, certain Sephardic rabbis of ultra-Orthodox rejec- beginning in the late 18th century, and especially tionism towards, e.g., secular studies. during and after the brief Egyptian rule (1831 In the instances discussed above, various ethni - –1840), increased Jewish immigration from cally Jewish sub-groups interacted and influenced Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East each-other with regard to varieties of Jewish cultu - led to the establishment of non-Sephardic commu- ral norms.
    [Show full text]
  • Transdenominational MA in Jewish Music Program, Preparing
    THIS IS THE INSIDE FRONT COVER EDITOR: Joseph A. Levine ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Richard Berlin EDITORIAL BOARD Rona Black, Shoshana Brown, Geoffrey Goldberg, Charles Heller, Kimberly Komrad, Sheldon Levin, Laurence Loeb, Judy Meyersberg, Ruth Ross, Neil Schwartz, Anita Schubert, Sam Weiss, Yossi Zucker TheJournal of Synagogue Music is published annually by the Cantors As- sembly. It offers articles and music of broad interest to theh azzan and other Jewish professionals. Submissions of any length from 1,000 to 10,000 words will be consid ered. GUIDELINES FOR SUBMITTING MATERIAL All contributions and communications should be sent to the Editor, Dr. Joseph A. Levine—[email protected]—as a Word docu- ment, with a brief biography of the author appended. Musical and/or graphic material should be formatted and inserted within the Word document. Footnotes are used rather than endnotes, and should conform to the fol- lowing style: A - Abraham Idelsohn, Jewish Liturgy (New York: Henry Holt), 1932: 244. B - Samuel Rosenbaum, “Congregational Singing”; Proceedings of the Cantors Assembly Convention (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary), February 22, 1949: 9-11. Layout by Prose & Con Spirito, Inc., Cover design and Printing by Replica. © Copyright 2009 by the Cantors Assembly. ISSN 0449-5128 ii FROM THE EDITOR: The Issue of Niggunim in Worship: Too Much of a Good Thing? ..................................................4 THE NEO-HASIDIC REVIVAL AT 50 Music as a Spiritual Process in the Teachings of Rav Nahman of Bratslav Chani Haran Smith. 8 The Hasidic Niggun: Ethos and Melos of a Folk Liturgy Hanoch Avenary . 48 Carlebach, Neo-Hasidic Music and Liturgical Practice Sam Weiss.
    [Show full text]
  • C.V.7.2. Israeli Popular Music
    1 C.V.7.2. Israeli Popular Music Edwin Seroussi In the early period of Israeli statehood, the means for the support of musical performance, composition, dissemination and education were in the mostly in the hands of governmental agencies and thus controlled by the dominant political and cultural elites. This control by the establishment gradually weakened, particularly following the decentralization of the mass media since the early 1980s. Popular music, a characteristic modern urban phenomenon, and its hallmark, the appeal to heterogenic populations, cosmopolitanism, industrial production and mass distribution in an open market, became then the main mode of music making and consumption in Israel as it did at a global level. From the 1920ies up to the present Popular music defined along these lines first appeared in Israel with the growth of large cities (Tel-Aviv-Jaffa, Haifa, Jerusalem) propelled by the immigration of professional musicians from Poland, Germany and the former Austro-Hungarian Empire in the late 1920s and early 1930s. These musicians developed in Israel new musical venues similar to those of the European cities, such as musical theaters and cabarets where contemporary European songs sung to new Hebrew texts were mixed with new compositions by local composers in genres such as the tango and the fox-trot. The popular music industry in Israel was launched in the mid-1930s when the first commercial record company was founded and a radio station opened in Palestine under the British Mandate that included Hebrew broadcasts. Up to the 1970s, popular music was dominated by tight state-controlled cultural policies and mass media.
    [Show full text]
  • MUSIC of ISRAEL PAUL BEN-HAIM Symphony No
    MUSIC OF ISRAEL PAUL BEN-HAIM Symphony No. 1 Pastorale variée Pan Claudia Barainsky soprano John Bradbury clarinet BBC Philharmonic Omer Meir Wellber Paul Ben-Haim,1930s Paul Courtesy of Archive of Paul Ben-Haim, Music Department, The National Library of Israel (MUS 55) Paul Ben-Haim (1897 – 1984) premiere recording Pan, Op. 17 (1931)*† 15:16 A Symphonic Poem for Soprano and Orchestra Poem by Heinrich Lautensack Alex Jakeman flute 1 Tempo I. Sehr ruhige Bewegung – Tempo I – Tempo I – Ruhig bewegt – Allmählich verlangsamen – Ruhiger – Ein wenig vorangehen – Wieder zurückhalten – Più mosso ed un poco agitato – Allmählich ruhiger – Ruhiges Hauptzeitmaß [Tempo I] – Sehr ruhig – 7:13 2 Zwischenspiel. Andantino molto rubato – Lebhafter – Wieder lebhafter – Etwas zurückhalten in Tempo – Fließend – Große Steigerung – Stark verbreitern – Tempo I – Sehr ruhig – Ende des Zwischenspiels – 3:30 3 Sehr langsam und ruhig beginnen – Zeit lassen – Aufblühend – Von hier ab große Steigerung! Vorwärts! Drängend! Wachsend! – Vorwärts! – Ekstatisch verbreitern – Sehr bewegt – Sehr breit – Tempo I 4:33 3 Pastorale variée, Op. 31b (1945, revised 1948)†‡ 16:57 for Solo Clarinet with String Orchestra and Harp To Gys Karten 4 Thema. Sostenuto e dolce – 1:53 5 Variation I. Lo stesso movimento – 1:50 6 Variation II. Un poco più mosso – Calmo – 1:35 7 Variation III. [Calmo] – 2:16 8 Variation IV. Ancora più calmo – 2:24 9 Variation V. Allegretto, poco a poco accelerando – Allegro – Più allegro – Accelerando – Con fuoco – 1:45 10 Variation VI (Epilogue). Molto calmo
    [Show full text]
  • Israeli Mediterranean Music: Straddling Disputed Territories Author(S): Amy Horowitz Source: the Journal of American Folklore, Vol
    Israeli Mediterranean Music: Straddling Disputed Territories Author(s): Amy Horowitz Source: The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 112, No. 445, Theorizing the Hybrid (Summer, 1999), pp. 450-463 Published by: American Folklore Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/541372 Accessed: 10/05/2010 01:12 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=illinois and http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=folk. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of Illinois Press and American Folklore Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of American Folklore.
    [Show full text]
  • Shlomo Carlebach (B
    UNIT 4 APPENDICES A PROGRAM OF THE LOWELL MILKEN FUND FOR AMERICAN JEWISH MUSIC AT THE UCLA HERB ALPERT SCHOOL OF MUSIC UNIT 4: THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN…. 1 APPENDIX A: DEBATE POINTS UNIT 4: THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN…. 2 For Art Music • Music of the synagogue should represent, reflect and elevate the beauty of Shabbat/Holiday worship. • Music of the synagogue should be sophisticated and inspiring, elevating the heart and soul. • Prayer is an art form, and art can also be prayer. As with any art form, such as poetry, literature, architecture, and even music, we should bring our greatest talents and training to create the most beautiful expression of prayer we can. • Music of the synagogue should be reflective of and responsive to the “nusach” of the various holidays and Shabbat, carrying forward the theme of these celebrations and observances through music. • The music of the synagogue should invite the listening worshipper to moments of reflection and meditation. • Responsibility for curating, selecting and composing the music of the synagogue lies with the cantor. • Importance of tradition - connection to our past, reverence for past of Jewish music For Communal Participation Music • Music of the synagogue should represent, reflect and elevate the beauty of Shabbat/Holiday worship. • Music of the synagogue should be sophisticated, elevating and inspiring the heart and soul. • Music of the synagogue should invite congregational participation. • Music of the synagogue must be in a key that all can sing. • Music of the synagogue should connect worshippers to the broader Jewish and secular world.
    [Show full text]
  • Musical Personae in a Cosmopolitan Society by Merav Singer A
    Singing as an Israeli Woman: Musical Personae in a Cosmopolitan Society By Merav Singer A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Music in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Benjamin Brinner, Chair Professor Tamara Roberts Professor Paola Bacchetta Professor Edwin Seroussi Fall 2015 Abstract Singing as an Israeli Woman: Musical Personae in a Cosmopolitan Society by Merav Singer Doctor of Philosophy in Music University of California, Berkeley Professor Benjamin Brinner, Chair Israel in the 21 st century is an intensely multicultural society where several types of cosmopolitanism vie with regional and ethnic forms of expression, a phenomenon that plays out in musical life. I propose that such a society offers a variety of possibilities for what a woman is, what she can do, and how she can work. This dissertation is an ethnographic study of four female singer-songwriters that examines the ways they negotiate and sometimes challenge socio-cultural norms in creating their careers and constructing their artistic personae, or the version of themselves that they present as musicians. The artists I focus on straddle four major rifts in Israeli society, between Arabs and Jews, Mizrahim and Ashkenazim, Russian-speaking immigrants and native Israelis, and Orthodox and non-Orthodox communities. In using their ethnic heritage as cultural capital to corner a unique market niche, these artists become enmeshed in social politics that include tensions between ethnic and religious groups, conflicting gender roles, and struggles over belonging. I argue that as they create legible personae to meet the demands of the music industry, their liminality between mainstream society and a minority sector challenges the discourse around those identities.
    [Show full text]
  • A Hebrew Liederabend an Evening of Hebrew Song Tuesday, June 4, 2019
    A Hebrew Liederabend An Evening of Hebrew Song Tuesday, June 4, 2019 ANNE E. LEIBOWITZ MEMORIAL CONCERT Program 6:00pm Pre-Concert Lecture Including music by 7:00pm Concert JOSEPH ACHRON JOEL ENGEL Performed by ALEXANDER KREIN ILANA DAVIDSON PAUL BEN-HAIM RAPHAEL FRIEDER OFER BEN-AMOTS ELIZABETH SHAMMASH and poetry by YEHUDI WYNER and guest artist RONN YEDIDIA SHAUL TCHERNICHOVSKY AVIGDOR HAMEIRI Devised by YEHUDA HALEVI NEIL W. LEVIN LEAH GOLDBERG RACHEL HAYIM NAHMAN BIALIK This event is part of the Smithsonian Year of Music. and others… YIVO INSTITUTE FOR JEWISH RESEARCH in the Center for Jewish History 15 WEST 16TH STREET · NYC PROGRAM INTERMISSION אומרים: ישנה ארץ | THEY SAY THERE IS A LAND נעמי שמר | Music by Naomi Shemer | 1930-2004 שאול טשרניחובסקי | Words by Shaul Tchernichovsky | 1875-1943 כיבוי אורות | LIGHTS OUT נעמי שמר | Music and Words by Naomi Shemer | 1930-2004 אומרים: ישנה ארץ | THEY SAY THERE IS A LAND מנחם ויזנברג | Arranged by Menachem Wiesenberg | 1950- יואל אנגל | Music by Joel Engel | 1868-1927 שאול טשרניחובסקי | Words by Shaul Tchernichovsky | 1875-1943 שיר ליקינתון | THE HYACINTH רבקה גוילי | Melody by Rivka Gwily שני מכתבים | TWO LETTERS לאה גולדברג | Words by Lea Goldberg | 1911-1970 יואל אנגל | Music by Joel Engel | 1868-1927 מנחם ויזנברג | Arranged by Menachem Wiesenberg | 1950- אביגדור המאירי | Words by Avigdor Hameiri | 1890-1970 הנך יפה רעיתי | BEHOLD, THOU ART FAIR גלות | IN EXILE ידידיה אדמון | Music by Yedidiya Admon | 1894-1982 היינריך שליט | Music by Heinrich Schalit | 1886-1976 שיר השירים | Words
    [Show full text]
  • Ideological Pressures in the Yishuv Period and Their Offshoots in Israeli Art Music During the Recent Two Decades
    The Vision of the East and the Heritage of the West: Ideological Pressures in the Yishuv Period and their Offshoots in Israeli Art Music during the Recent Two Decades JEHOASH HIRSHBERG At the end of February 1946, the Symphony Orchestra of the Federation of Workers, conducted by the prolific Frank Pollack,1 premiered the Semitic Suite by Alexander U. Boskovitch (1907-64). This turned out to be one of the cornerstones of Israel’s young history of art music during the Yishuv period.2 Born in Cluj, Transylvania, Boskovitch settled in Tel Aviv in 1938 following the premiere of his Chansons Populaires Juives by the newly founded Palestine Orchestra (later the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra). This was a suite of folk songs of the Jews of the Carpathian Mountains that Boskovitch had arranged first for piano and then for orchestra in 1936.3 After his immigration, Boskovitch effected an immediate change in style and the Semitic Suite rejected the tonal language of Europe and turned to heterophony and textures that emulated the Arabic Ud or Kanun.4 The veteran music critic of the Ha'Aretz daily, David Rosolio,5 wrote: Boskovitch explicitly strives to the creation of a new musical style that is purely Eastern. He rejects all Western harmonic and melodic elements, and he creates tunes that suit the world of Arabic Eastern music; the harmonic development and the structure follow this music. Boskovitch has recognized the problem that one cannot continue in this country to compose works that are based on genuine Western music: the scenery, the life style, the environment, all call for a change of direction and another basic conception.
    [Show full text]
  • The Israeli Mediterranean Style: Origins, 1930S—1950S Ronit Seter
    The Israeli Mediterranean Style: Origins, 1930s—1950s Ronit Seter © 2013 The term Mediterranean style, as it has been used in Israel, originally referred to selected versions of European Mediterranean styles in art music that Jewish composers—the founders of Israeli music, among them the Israeli Five: Paul (Frankenburger) Ben-Haim (1897-1984), Oedoen Partos (1907-1977), Alexander U. Boskovich (1907-1964), Mordecai (Starominsky) Seter (1916-1994), and Josef (Grünthal) Tal (1910-2008)— developed first in British Palestine in the late 1930s throughout the 1940s, then in Israel mostly until the early 1950s, denoting an emerging national identity through local color in music. It was also qualified as signon Mizrahi (Eastern or oriental style, i.e., of the Middle East, the cradle of Judaism, rather than East Asia) or signon Mizrah-yam tikhoni (Eastern-Mediterranean style), referring to the preferred ethnic sources: often derived from the liturgical and para-liturgical musical traditions of Yemenite, Persian, and Moroccan Israeli Jews (i.e., the musics of local and regional Arab and Persian Jews) and other Mizrahi and local, Palestinian musical heritage. These traditions inspired the founders who, following Bartók in particular, and other European and East-European national schools, wished to create a national style based on local traditions, some of which presumably had remote resemblance to the music of the Temple or ancient Israel. The Mediterranean style embodied, first and foremost, a collection of styles imagined and constructed to convey nationalism in music during the pre-statehood decade. During the last few decades, the term has acquired additional meanings, relating to popular Israeli musics influenced by regional musical elements, which have transformed and redefined the original meaning.
    [Show full text]
  • Kabbalat Shabbat
    FROM GERMANY TO PALESTINE: A COMPARISON OF TWO CHORAL WORKS BY PAUL BEN-HAIM – JORAM AND KABBALAT SHABBAT Holly Dalrymple Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS August 2013 APPROVED: Jerry McCoy, Major Professor Jeffrey Snider, Committee Member Richard Sparks, Committee Member and Chair of the Division of Conducting and Ensembles Benjamin Brand, Director of Graduate Studies in the College of Music James C. Scott, Dean of the College of Music Mark Wardell, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Dalrymple, Holly. From Germany to Palestine: A Comparison of Two Choral Works by Paul Ben-Haim – “Joram” and “Kabbalat Shabbat.” Doctor of Musical Arts (Performance), August 2013, 44 pp., 33 figures, bibliography, 25 titles. The choral music of Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim (1897-1984) falls clearly into two distinct compositional periods. Born in Munich, Germany as Paul Frankenburger, the composer received formal, classical training at the Munich Academy of Music. His compositions from this period are an amalgamation of many styles, and they include influences of Bach, Handel, Mahler, Debussy, and Strauss. In 1933, Ben-Haim, along with other trained artists and composers, immigrated to Palestine as part of the Fifth Aliyah. Prior to this wave of immigration, Palestine had not yet received any serious composers, and musically, was still in its infancy. Eager to divorce themselves from the West and identify with their new home in the East, Ben-Haim and his fellow transplant composers sought a new musical language and a unique voice for Israel. Enamored with the exotic sounds of his new environment, Ben-Haim began to absorb elements of Eastern Mediterranean music into his compositions.
    [Show full text]