MUSIC Service (English, Hebrew, Arabic) was Israel at 60 opened, and in December Toscanini conducted the debut of the Palestine Orchestra (renamed the IPO in 1948), The arts and national identity whose members were drawn from young talented musicians gathered, and thus rescued, from across Europe. The musical style was pluralistic, THE ROAD made up of many ingredients; as Max Brod, critic and composer and friend of Kafka, characterised it: "From every OF ISRAEL’S corner, very different stones are brought in, stones which constitute the structure of our music." Yet one style eventually came to COMPOSERS dominate, the ‘Eastern Mediterranean School’, a radical new aesthetic based on MALCOLM MILLER on how Israel’s classical an east-west synthesis, which combined oriental as well as occidental Jewish composers have arrived at a style in tune with folklore, favoured French post- the country’s contemporary pluralistic identity Impressionism over Germanic modernism and drew inspiration from and its political reality the lyrical poetry of the Hebrew Psalms. The leading exponent of this style was : an east- While Israeli performers are renowned in Paul Ben-Haim, the most famous of First generation the international arena, classical Israel’s composers. west synthesis, which combined compositions by Israelis are far less well- Akin to the folk music revival in oriental as well as occidental Jewish known. Yet, since the birth of the State, England, Hungary or America, with Photo: Marjana Voncina ‘serious’ music by Israeli composers has composers like Vaughan Williams, folklore, favoured French post- attained a remarkably dynamic impetus Bartók, or Copland, the composers of the Impressionism over Germanic despite, and perhaps because of, the harsh immigrant generation wanted to assimilate realities of daily life. oriental Jewish and Arabic music. They modernism, and drew inspiration from During the last 60 years, the changing collected the music of the oriental the lyrical poetry of the Hebrew Psalms style of the work of Israel’s composers has communities in Palestine; a Yemenite reflected a changing perception of singer called Bracha Zfira inspired PAUL BEN-HAIM (1897-1984) ‘Israeliness’ – and its relationship to hundreds of arrangements which she was born in Munich to an educated, Jewish culture. This question was debated performed in kibbutzim, towns and cities. assimilated family. He became even before the foundation of the State. Ben-Haim arranged some 35 songs for her assistant to Bruno Walter at the Peter Gradenwitz, author of The Music of between 1939 and 1951. One of the most Bavarian Opera and conductor of Israel, in 1959 wrote: “In the 1930s the popular was an arrangement of the Ladino the Augsburg Opera. He emigrated question was ardently discussed: Is there a folksong ‘Mama yo no tengo visto’ to Palestine in 1933. His most Palestinian music? Now, we hear the entitled ‘Berceuse Sfaradite’. famous work was the suite The question asked in a different vein – what Very popular in the 1940s and 50s Sweet Psalmist of Israel, 1956, to be is an Israeli composer?" He goes on was the work of Marc Lavry, originally premiered with Middle-Eastern instruments at the "whether or not Israeli in style and from Riga. He composed the opera Dan JMI day of Israeli music at the South Bank, 30 content, the works produced in the Land the Guard, with a libretto by Max Brod. November, 2008. of Israel can only be appreciated as Set on a kibbutz, the opera was indivisible from the creative efforts of its premiered in 1945 but fell into neglect ALEXANDER URIAH BOSKOVICH builders in all spheres of civilisation and after a couple of years. It would well (1907-1964) was born in in culture…". reward a revival. Transylvania and studied with Nadia By the 1920s, the early builders, Though, with hindsight, this Boulanger and Paul Dukas. An Russian and Eastern European Zionists, nationalistic musical quest could be seen invitation to Tel-Aviv in 1938 to had created an active concert and music as idealistically visionary, it was also attend the premiere of his first major education infrastructure. Notable was Joel somewhat naïve. Some aspects soon work Golden Chain, a set of dances Engel, who in his native Russia had been became anachronistic, including the based on East European folksongs, a founder of the Society for Jewish Folk exoticising of Middle-Eastern elements by the recently founded Palestine Orchestra (later Music. Engel composed the incidental and, with notable exceptions, an IPO), saved his life. He was never to return to music for a production of Ansky’s The isolationism that emphasised a Romania. In 1946 Boskovich composed a Violin Dybbuk by the Habima theatre. discontinuity with Modernism. Concerto which won the IPO’s prize. A re-edited The arrival of some 40 émigré Second generation Israeli composers, version by Israeli composer Michael Wolpe was composers from Nazi Europe in the those either born in Israel or who came as premiered at the annual Sounds in the Desert 1930s heralded important developments. young children from Europe did not share Festival at Kibbutz Sde Boker in 2006. In 1936 the Palestinian Broadcasting the same intense need to separate from 32 JEWISH RENAISSANCE APRIL 2008 MUSIC Second generation: a engaged in contemporary music. melody and dance rhythms, all blended compelling synthesis that is fully The issue of east-west synthesis is into an atonal avant-garde texture. potently encapsulated in a recent work by The younger generation are also less engaged in contemporary music one of the leading composers of the naïve, and, having undergone national second generation, Yehezkel Braun. service, more politically engaged. Arik YEHEZKEL BRAUN was born Braun’s Psalterion combines a Persian Shapira, one of the more controversial in Breslau in 1922 and came to santur (a hammered dulcimer) with a avant-gardists, regularly addresses Palestine as a two-year-old. He western European piano trio, and uses the political issues in his works (such as Left- studied with the pioneer Persian ‘dashti’ scale, one of the most Right) and several more accessible composer Boskovich and popular and important modes in Arabic composers have memorialised in music graduated in Greek and Latin at folk music. This is close to a major scale issues and experiences such as the Tel Aviv University where he with a flattened 7th, used in many types of Lebanon and Gulf wars. was later Professor of folk music, but the Arabic modes use Simple idealisation is no longer Composition. Braun’s interest in different tunings – ‘microtones’ – for possible. Israeli creativity has to take on classics led him to the Benedictine Monastery of some of the notes, making the music the tough problems of multiculturalism, Solesmes in France where he studied Gregorian sound (to western ears) slightly off pitch, globalisation and an evolving Middle- chant (See also page34). giving it an eastern flavour. Eastern political reality. The composer has written that The challenge is to find an identity TZVI AVNI, born in 1927 in "Oriental and Western music are worlds that is not burdened with the past yet still Germany, came to Israel as a apart, so different… that it is well nigh is consonant with earlier aesthetics, an child. His early lyrical style, impossible to combine them. For me as a identity which allows for folkloric shown in one of his most popular composer this was undoubtedly the most influences, yet is not defined by them. works, Prayer (1961, rev. 1969), difficult task I have ever tried to tackle." It Interaction with Arab musicians in underwent a radical change when is a refreshing and imaginative work, with Israel is far more widespread than in earlier he studied in the USA in the an intriguing east-west flavour, beautiful generations and many projects involve 1960s and encountered Copland sonorities and engaging dialogue amongst Arab and Jewish Israeli citizens combining and Lukas Foss and absorbed the instruments. their talents. Taiseer Elias is a leading the Modernist style of Boulez and One of the most significant composers Arab ‘oudist and composer, Director of the Stockhausen. In 1971 he became Professor at of the second generation is Tzvi Avni. His Orchestra of Classical Arabic Music of the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem and Head of Piano Sonata no 2, ‘Epitaph’, is a good Israel, Head of the Department of Eastern the Electronic Music Studio. Since the 1970s example of his distinctive synthesis of Music of the Jerusalem Academy of Music, Avni has displayed an interest in Jewish avant-garde complex atonality and Jewish and a Professor at Bar Ilan University. His mysticism, adding modal and neo-tonal musical elements including cantillation work with Michael Wolpe (b.1960) and elements to his style. (chanting). Avni’s later piano work Menachem Wiesenberg (b.1950) resulted in Triptych (1993) has many Jewish and NOAM SHERIFF (b.1935), eastern resonances, not least the final, Third generation: internationally-known conductor third, movement, a witty piquant Chasidic and composer, has composed dance inflected with dissonance, with a The issue was no longer how to large-scale oratorios on major chirpy quotation of a famous children’s ‘create’ a style, but to express Jewish topics: Mehaye Hametim Chanukah song. (1987), a Holocaust memorial For the third generation of their own identity through the piece which intermingles shofar composers, born in the late 1940s, 50s multicultural influences calls modified as air-raid sirens, and early 60s, and maturing in the 1980s Yiddish and Hebrew folk songs onwards, Israeli identity has evolved around them. and modernist textures, the even further from the idealistic ELLA MILCH-SHERIFF (b. 1954), Sephardi Passion (1992), which uses Ladino orientalisms of their forbears. The issue wife of Noam Sheriff, has composed sources, and Psalms for Jerusalem (1995) for them was no longer how to ‘create’ a a string of highly powerful and commissioned by the JSO for the Jerusalem style, but to express their own identity successful works including an opera 3000 anniversary, which remarkably combines through the multicultural influences dealing with the Holocaust, And the Latin and Hebrew Psalm texts interspersed with around them.