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“Israel”
New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
Country in the Middle East. The history of the Jewish people was
dominated by the traumatic destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE) and
the dispersal of the majority of Jews in the Diaspora. Longing for a return to
the Holy Land became a basic tenet in Jewish faith. Religious devotion,
persecutions and the emergence of a Jewish national movement in the late
19th century triggered successive immigration waves of Jews to Palestine,
beginning in 1880. The Jewish community of Palestine, referred to as the
Yishuv (‘Settlement’), was culturally autonomous both under Ottoman rule
(until 1918) and under the British mandate until the foundation of the
independent state of Israel in 1948.
Israeli society has always been dominated by the ideological call to return
to the Eastern biblical roots of the nation and to act as a melting pot,
contrasted with internal pressures to preserve the heritage of the diverse
Jewish ethnic groups, including the performance and study of classical
Western repertory. Music played a role in bringing people together,
whether for active participation in choirs, bands and folk singing, or as
concert audiences. The deliberate revival of Hebrew as a modern language
of communication was their most powerful unifying tool, and vocal music
was encouraged as a potent device for disseminating the use and the
correct accent of the language among immigrants. Lacking a common
tradition of folksong, amateur and professional composers turned to
inventing a new tradition of Hebrew songs in the hope of their
dissemination among the people. Jewish communities of ancient Sephardi,
or Middle Eastern, descent comprised expanded families that settled
together, leading a mutually supporting cultural and religious life around
their synagogue, with daily services and family events providing ample
opportunities for music-making. By contrast, most European, or Ashkenazi,
Jews immigrated as individuals or in nuclear families, and socialized
through the Western institutional model of public concerts. Processes of
acculturation ranged from complete compartmentalization to syntheses of
traditions.
I. Art music
II. Folk and popular music
III. Arab music
Israel, §I: Art music
1. Before 1948.
(i) 1880–1918.
The number of Jews in Palestine under the Ottomans grew from 8000 in
1839 to 80,000 on the eve of World War I. A small, strictly religious
community, known as the ‘Old Yishuv’, settled in the ‘holy towns’ of Safed,
Tiberias, Jerusalem and Hebron. The first waves of religious immigration of
Jews from the Yemen, and of nationally motivated immigration from
Europe, mostly from Russia, arrived in the 1880s. Musical activity started
with the first amateur communal orchestra in the settlement of Rishon Letsiyon (leZion; 1895), soon emulated in most other settlements as well as in
Jerusalem and Jaffa under the auspices of Agudat Kinnor Tsiyon (‘The
Violin of Zion Society’). Their repertory consisted of light classics, marches
and arrangements of Jewish folksongs. The Jews became the largest
ethnic group in cosmopolitan Jerusalem, where limited musical activity was
conducted within small cultural enclaves such as the private homes of
diplomats or among such religious groups as the Templars.
In January 1907 the cantor and scholar A.Z. Idelsohn (1882–1938) settled
in Jerusalem and conducted pioneering ethnomusicological research
among the numerous local Jewish ethnic groups there, using a cylinder
phonograph. His goal was to define the common elements of Jewish liturgy
that might reveal the heritage of the Temple. His study of the Yemenites
culminated in the first volume of his Thesaurus (1914). He was also active
as a teacher and choral conductor.
Tel-Aviv was founded in 1910 as the Jewish suburb of Jaffa, and in the
same year the singer Shulamit (Selma) Ruppin (1873–1912) founded the
first music school in the country. Basing its curriculum on that of the
traditional German conservatory, it served as a model for other music
schools, with violin, piano and voice classes, a student orchestra and choir
and ear training classes. World War I had disastrous consequences for the
small Jewish community, and musical life was halted.
(ii) 1919–30.
With the establishment of British rule, Jewish immigration resumed, mostly
from Russia and Poland. Tel-Aviv became a vibrant urban cultural centre,
with fine professional musicians settling in the country. But many
imaginative initiatives soon ran aground because of the unstable economy.
The conductor Mark Golinkin (1875–1963) initiated in 1923 the Palestine
Opera, which performed operas by Verdi, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Anton
Rubinstein and others in Hebrew translation, strongly supported by the
literary Jewish élite. With fine singers but a deficient orchestra, the Opera
performed for capacity audiences in dreary cinemas; lack of funds forced
its closure in 1927. In 1925 the conductor Max Lampel had started a shortlived monthly series of outdoor symphonic concerts.
In 1924 Joel Engel (1868–1927), who had founded a Society for Jewish
Folk Music in St Petersburg in 1908, made Tel-Aviv the centre of his
Niggun society, active mostly in the low-cost publication of hundreds of
arrangements of Jewish folksongs from eastern Europe. Music societies in
Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem cultivated small audiences for chamber music. The
Jerusalem Musical Society, founded in 1921 by the British-born cellist
Thelma Yellin and her violinist sister Margery, formed the first professional
string quartet in the country and sponsored high-standard chamber
concerts in Jerusalem for 15 years. Music critics, especially David Rosolio
and Menashe Ravina, published detailed reviews in the daily press,
insisting on high standards of performance. The European ClassicalRomantic canon soon came to dominate concert programmes, delegating
the light classics to a secondary position.
Composition was concentrated on the invented folksong, with new art
music limited to a handful of works, notably the first Hebrew folk opera, The
Pioneers (1924) by Jacob Weinberg (1870–1958). The dominating spirit of
socialism spearheaded by the idealistic kibbutz (communal village)
movement and the idealization of agricultural pioneer work were the
backdrop for the Institute for the Promotion of Music among the People,
which sponsored lectures, workers' choruses and courses for choral
conductors all over the country. The economic depression of the late 1920s
and the deterioration of Arab-Jewish relations in 1929 dealt a heavy blow to
these frail initiatives.
(iii) 1931–48.
The rise to power of Nazi and fascist regimes in Europe provoked a large
wave of immigration from Europe. The Jewish population more than
doubled, to 445,000, with well trained and musically committed immigrants
from central Europe immediately taking the lead in musical life, both as
professional musicians and as a highly discerning and demanding
audience. In October 1933 the violinist Emil Hauser, former first violinist of
the Budapest Quartet, settled in Palestine and founded the Palestine
Conservatory, which again emulated the German model, with a staff of 33
teachers of most instruments, as well as classes in theory, music history,
composition and music education. In March 1936 the British administration
established the Palestine Broadcast Service (PBS), transmitting on one
channel and shifting daily from Arabic to Hebrew and then to English
programmes. The small and under-funded music department was run by
British and Jewish musicians, with relatively large slots for live music from
the studio. The studio ensemble soon expanded into the radio orchestra
and stressed performances of Jewish and locally written new compositions.
The major event of the 1930s was the founding of the Palestine Orchestra.
Conceived by the violinist Bronisław Huberman (1882–1947) as a
visionary, multi-faceted musical centre situated in the fresh East in
response to what he had regarded as the decline of the West, it soon
turned into a salvage operation for the finest Jewish musicians who had
lost their positions in some of the best orchestras of central Europe.
Huberman supervised and financed most of the operation. Inaugurated in
December 1936 as a powerful anti-Nazi protest under Toscanini, the
Palestine Orchestra maintained high standards from its inception,
performing with the finest international conductors and soloists for capacity
subscription audiences. Members of the orchestra formed chamber
ensembles, such as the Israeli Quartet, that preserved the central
European chamber-music tradition with regular series in intimate halls,
such as the old Tel-Aviv Museum. The founding of the orchestra completed
the stratification of musical life in the Yishuv.
More than 40 well trained composers came to Palestine during this period.
They had not known each other before immigration, and did not constitute
any cohesive school. Foremost were Stefan Wolpe (1902–72), Paul Ben
Haim (1897–1984), Erich Walter Sternberg (1891–1974), Josef Tal (b
1910) and Marc Lavry (1903–67), all trained in Germany, and A.U.
Boskovitch (1907–64) and Verdina Shlonsky (1905–90), who had received
most of their training in Paris. Menahem Avidom (1908–95) and Mordecai
Seter (1916–94) came to Palestine at a young age, but received their
advanced training in Paris. Slightly younger composers, such as Haim
(Heinz) Alexander (b 1915), halted their studies in Germany and completed
them in Palestine. The Palestine Orchestra provided an incentive for
symphonic works, such as Lavry's Emek (1936), eulogizing the pioneers
through the insertion of the horah folkdance into a symphonic poem, or
Sternberg's large-scale Twelve Tribes of Israel (1938), in which he
transplanted the high pathos of the late Romantic German style to express
his identification with Jewish history. Other important compositions were
Ben Haim's Variations on a Hebrew Tune (1938), based on the Arab
melody that had been turned into the folksong My Motherland, the Land of
Cana‘an, and Wolpe's Dance in a Form of a Chaconne (1938), which
boldly combines horah rhythms with a strict chaconne pattern and atonal
harmony.
The bold and innovative Wolpe felt alienated in the traditionally inclined
local musical community and emigrated to the USA in 1938, but all the
other composer immigrants overcame the resettlement trauma and stayed.
In 1938 Sally Levi, a dentist and amateur composer, initiated the World
Centre for Jewish Music, which started a huge network of correspondence
with Jewish musicians, published a single issue of Musica hebraica, and
sponsored performances, most notably of Bloch's Sacred Service, until the
outbreak of World War II stopped its activities. The intense compositional
activity led to the creation of ACUM, the performing rights society, founded
in 1936 and officially registered in 1940. The Academy of Music in Tel-Aviv
opened in 1944.
During World War II the country was nearly cut off from the outside world,
but concert life continued, with local musicians substituting for international
conductors and soloists, and with the composition and performance of such
key works as Ben Haim's First Symphony (1940), Mordecai Seter's cantata
Sabbath (1940), Boskovitch's Oboe Concerto (1943) and Semitic Suite
(1945), and Lavry's opera Dan the Guard (1945). Founded by the
American singer Addis de Philip in 1948, Israeli opera survived for 30
years, marred by chronic economic and personal difficulties.
2. East–West encounters.
An East–West dichotomy dominated many aspects of musical life. National
ideology demanded rejection of the European Diaspora and called for the
revival of the ancient roots of the Jews in the East. However, there were
few who insisted on a total rejection of the Western musical heritage; the
chief argument was between those searching for a West–East synthesis
and those upholding the value of individual freedom of expression.
Idelsohn's bold endeavour triggered respect and even a romanticization of
ethnic traditions, especially that of the Yemenite Jews, among Western
musicians. But the lack of training in ethnic interaction, and the economic
pressures on the immigrant musicians to make ends meet, hindered most
attempts to reach out to the East, and left the core of the problem – the
lack of compatibility between the two musical worlds – unresolved. Eastern
elements in most early compositions were transplants of Russian
orientalism or French exoticism.
Deliberate East–West contacts started in the 1930s almost simultaneously
from both directions. A few fine musicians of Middle Eastern origins
brought ethnic Jewish and Arab traditions to Western audiences through
concerts and radio programmes. The Yemenite singer Brakha Tsefira
(Bracha Zefira; 1910–90), raised as an orphan by foster families of different
Eastern ethnic groups, from whom she absorbed diverse oral traditions,
started an international career in 1930 with the improvising pianist Nahum
Nardi, while collecting by memory further traditional songs. In 1939 she
turned to most of the immigrant composers and commissioned
arrangements, which she performed with members of the Palestine
Orchestra on European instruments, as well as with piano, disregarding
intonational clashes. The Iraqi-born 'ud player and composer Ezra Aharon
(1903–95) was a member of the Iraqi Royal Band. In 1932 he participated
in the Cairo conference of Arab music, where he met the ethnomusicologist
Robert Lachmann (1892–1939); they continued to collaborate after their
settlement in Palestine. Aharon was head of the Arab music ensemble of
the PBS, and he also experimented in playing with members of the radio
orchestra. The Yemenite Sarah Levi-Tanai was a singer, composer and
choreographer who brought Yemenite traditions to the stage, culminating in
her dance work ‘Inbal (1948).
The gap left by Idelsohn's emigration was filled by Lachmann, who
conducted an intensive recording and research project, continued and
much expanded after his early death by the ethnomusicologist Edith
Gerson-Kiwi (1908–92).
The composer A.U. Boskovitch presented a well articulated ideology based
on the dialectics of time and place. He regarded the Israeli composer as a
representative of the collective, one who should strive for a new national
style based on what he called ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ landscapes, referring to
the vocal rhetoric of Sephardi Hebrew and of Arabic. Stressing the regional
culture rather than Jewish heritage, he expressed his ideology in the
second movement of his Oboe Concerto (1943), in which the oboe
emulates the sound of the zurna in improvisatory melismas over a threenote string ostinato, and in the Semitic Suite (1945), where he imitates the
sound and melody of an Arab takht.
3. Since 1948.
(i) Ensembles and venues.
The young state of Israel acknowledged the role of music as a powerful
social, educational and promotional tool, and the Ministry of Education
appointed a High Music Council (later the music wing of the Public Council
for Culture and the Arts). The Palestine Orchestra, renamed the Israel PO,
was sent on frequent concert tours of Europe and the USA, and fine
recitalists were dispatched as cultural ambassadors. The first Israel Prize
for composition was granted in 1954. The government sponsored largescale international events, such as the International Harp Contest (from
1960) and the annual Israel Festival (from 1961). The newly built
Jerusalem Congress Centre (1953) and Frederic Mann Auditorium (1957)
provided spacious concert venues.
Increased immigration to Israel in the 1950s further diversified its culture,
with massive waves of Bulgarian Jewry and entire communities from
Yemen and North Africa. Urban growth encouraged new performing
groups, such as the Haifa and Be’er-Sheba‘ orchestras, the Rinat (Israel
National Choir) and the Israel Chamber Orchestra. The immigration of
musicians from the Soviet Union in the early 1970s led to the expansion of
the small radio orchestra into the Jerusalem SO (1972), housed at the new
performing arts centre of the Jerusalem Theatre.
The New Israeli Opera opened in Tel-Aviv in 1985, performing in the
original language with Hebrew surtitles; the Tel-Aviv Opera House opened
in 1994. Further huge immigration from the Soviet Union (1989–94) trebled
the number of musicians in Israel and encouraged the founding of new
orchestras, such as the chamber string orchestra Rehovot Camerata (in
Jerusalem since 1996) and Rishon Le-tsiyon SO, which has functioned
also as the opera orchestra. The Musica Nova and Caprisma ensembles
have specialized in contemporary repertory, and the early music movement
found fertile soil.
Chamber music has continued to attract audiences, with regular series held
at the Israel Museum, Tel-Aviv Art Museum, Tel-Aviv Conservatory, etc.
Ensembles such as the Israel and Tel-Aviv string quartets, Yuval Trio,
Israel Wind Quintet and Be’er-Sheba‘ Piano Duo have survived for more
than two decades.
(ii) Composition.
Tension between individualism and ideological collectivism increased when
a new generation of composers (such as Yehezkiel Braun, Ben-Zion
Orgad, Tzui Avni, Noam Sheriff, Ami Ma‘yani), born in the 1920s and 30s
joined the founders of Israeli music. Most of them composed with a
personal commitment and under external pressure to find a new national
style. At the same time they were exposed to and attracted by new
developments in the West after 1950. No consensus nor a national Israeli
school ever emerged, and the search only increased pluralism and
polemics. Of special significance was the use of the sound and rhythm of
the Hebrew language, whether biblical or modern, in vocal music.
Contrasting techniques were at times juxtaposed within a single
composition. For example, Josef Tal quoted a simple folktune by Yehudah
Sharett as an ostinato bass under atonal progressions in his Piano Sonata.
Oedoen Partos quoted two Yemenite melodies, altering their structural 5ths
into Bartókian tritones, in Visions. Tzui Avni integrated passages of
declamatory heterophony into rich and dissonant orchestral harmony in
Meditations on a Drama. Composers frequently alternated techniques
according to context and genre: Haim Alexander, for example, used
serialism in his Patterns but folk-like modality in his Nature Songs. New
immigrant composers who came at the prime of their creative power went
through profound artistic transformations. Mark Kopytman, who arrived in
1972 from the Soviet Union, integrated a traditional Yemenite song as sung
on stage by the Yemenite folk singer Gila Bashari into dense heterophony
in his Memory. In the 1970s the melting-pot ideology disintegrated and
postmodern pluralism gained the upper hand. Third- and fourth-generation
composers entered the stage, further expanding the stylistic diversity of
Israeli music from the iconoclasm of Aric Shapiro to Haim Permont's and
Michael Wolpe's nostalgic mementoes of Yishuv times.
(iii) Instruction, research and publication.
The Hebrew University, founded in 1925, became involved in music in
1933. The University National Library is the main repository of manuscripts
and prints of Jewish and Israeli music. The Sound Archives house
numerous field recordings. The Jewish Music Research Centre has
initiated projects such as the RISM catalogues and the periodical Yuval.
The first department of musicology was founded at the Hebrew University
in 1965, followed by Tel-Aviv University (1966) and Bar-Ilan University
(1969). Their varied research fields and curricula include the theory and
history of European music, Jewish music, world music and
ethnomusicology in its broadest sense. The laboratory of musicological
research at the Hebrew University was among the pioneers in the
development of the melograph.
Instruction in performance and composition has been provided by the
Rubin Academies in Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv, the latter incorporated into
Tel-Aviv University. The Jerusalem Music Centre, founded in 1971,
sponsors master classes by distinguished international teachers, as well as
specialized concerts and symposia. Until the 1980s institutional
instrumental instruction involved European instruments only, with the
exception of Erza Aharon's limited activity at the Jerusalem Conservatory.
The Hebrew University initiated a workshop in the performing practice of
Arab and Javanese music, having acquired a full gamelan. Instrumental
instruction in Classical Arab music started in 1996 at the Rubin Academy in
Jerusalem and at a school for Eastern music sponsored by Jerusalem City
Council.
In 1951 Peter Gradenwitz founded Israeli Music Publications, and in 1961
the Culture and Arts Council founded the Israeli Music Institute as a
publicly sponsored publishing house for Israeli music. The Israeli
Composers League, founded in 1953, established in 1993 its own
publishing house, the Israeli Music Centre.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A.Z. Idelsohn: Gesänge der jemenischen Juden (Leipzig, 1914)
Musica Hebraica, i–ii (Jerusalem, 1938)
M. Bentwich: Thelma Yellin, Pioneer Musician (Jerusalem, 1964)
I. Ibbeken and Z. Avni, eds.: An Orchestra is Born (Tel-Aviv, 1969)
M. Brod and Y.W. Cohen: Die Music Israels (Kassel, 1976)
A. Shiloah and E. Cohen: ‘The Dynamics of Change in Jewish Oriental
Ethnic Music in Israel’, EthM, xxvii (1983), 227–52
I. Adler, B. Bayer and E. Schleifer, eds.: The Abraham Zvi Idelsohn
Memorial Volume (Jerusalem, 1986) [with Eng. summaries]
J. Hirshberg: ‘Tel-Aviv: Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’, Symphony
Orchestras of the World, ed. R.R. Craven (New York, 1987), 202–7
A. Tischler: A Descriptive Bibliography of Art Music by Israeli Composers
(Warren, MI, 1989)
P.V. Bohlman: The Land where Two Streams Flow: Music in the GermanJewish Community of Israel (Urbana, IL, 1989)
J. Hirshberg: Paul Ben-Haim: his Life and Works (Jerusalem, 1990)
A. Shiloah: Jewish Musical Traditions (Detroit, 1992)
P.V. Bohlman: The World Centre for Jewish Music in Palestine, 1936–
1940: Jewish Musical Life on the Eve of World War II (Oxford, 1992)
J. Hirshberg: Music in the Jewish Community of Palestine 1880–1948: a
Social History (Oxford, 1995)
R. Fleisher: Twenty Israeli Composers: Voices of a Culture (Detroit, 1997)
Israel, §II: Folk and popular music
1. Before 1948.
An area of musical creativity originating in Erets-Israel (‘land of Israel’) was
Erets-Israeli song, which consists of Hebrew texts set to music with a
monophonic texture, usually by identifiable Erets-Israeli composers during
the period 1882–1948. Erets-Israeli songs developed alongside other
Hebrew songs sung in Erets-Israel up to 1948.
The origins of Hebrew songs coincide with the revival of Hebrew culture in
Europe and the beginning of the Zionist movement in the latter half of the
19th century. The Hebrew cultural revival included literature and poetry,
just as the Zionist movement brought with it waves of immigration to EretsIsrael.
(i) Era of the first immigration (1882–1903).
The majority of songs in Erets-Israel during the era of the first immigration
were brought by immigrants. Songs typically expressed a longing for EretsIsrael along with the hope for rebirth in the homeland. Many of the song
lyrics were written in Hebrew by poets who were part of the Hibat Sion
(love of Zion) and Hathiyah (revival) movements, but who, for the most
part, had never visited Erets-Israel. The majority of song melodies were
borrowed from Hasidic and Yiddish sources, and from Russian, Romanian
and Polish folk and popular songs.
Most melodies were in minor keys and in duple metre, at times in slow
march-like tempos, with typical Hebrew syllabic emphasis on the
penultimate syllable. These songs are also referred to as Hibat Tzion,
among them Hatiqvah, a song that became the anthem for the Zionist
movement, later becoming the Israeli national anthem.
(ii) Eras of the second and third immigrations (1904–14, 1919–23).
Four distinct song types characterize these eras. First, Hibat Tzion songs
continued from the previous era, becoming part of the second immigration's
repertory. The second category includes songs composed within EretsIsraeli educational institutions. With the establishment of educational
institutions in cities and villages and the inclusion of songs in school music
curricula, the need for suitable materials became evident. Until this time
appropriate pre-school and school songs were almost non-existent,
resulting in new musical materials, primarily songs, composed by some of
the music teachers. Teacher-composers such as Karchewsky (1873–1926)
and Idelsohn (1882–1938) began their activities in the 1910s, and thus
were the first Erets-Israeli composers. The third category includes songs
with Arab melodies that were widespread in Erets-Israel to which Hebrew
texts were fitted, e.g. Hachmisimi, Bein Nehar Prat, Yad ‘Anugah and Ani
Re'itiha. These were usually love songs characterized by use of the interval
of a 2nd (often an augmented 2nd), slow tempos and rubato. The wide
circulation of these songs indicates an integration with a widespread native
Eastern culture. The fourth category includes songs with melodies
originating in Eastern European Hasidic culture. Such texts include short
verses from the Bible or from prayer books. These songs include melodic
redundancy, repetition of lyrics, binary structures, ranges of one octave and
duple metre. El Yivneh Ha-miqdash, Vetaher Libeinu, El Yivneh Ha-galil
and Zivhu Sedeq are examples of songs that also made up the principal
component of horah dances. The rise of communal singing and horah
dancing became distinguishing characteristics of the Erets-Israeli
settlement.
(iii) Eras of the fourth and fifth immigrations (1924–48).
The 1920s was a period of dramatic change for Erets-Israeli song.
Composers such as Hanina Karchewsky, Abraham Zvi Idelsohn and Yoel
Engel (1868–1927) were ending their active periods, while others, such as
Yedidiah Admon (1894–1985), Nahum Nardi (1901–77), Shalom Postolsky
(1898-1949), Menashe Ravina (1888–1968), Mattityahu Shelem (1904–
75), Mordecai Zeira (1905–68), among others, were beginning careers.
Several composers lacked basic formal music education, while others did
not know or use musical notation. Their songs were intrinsically different
from those of their predecessors; for example, syllabic emphasis, moved to
the last syllable of words, brought about changes in musical rhythm. In
these and in subsequent years, subjects of songs composed and sung in
Erets-Israel concerned work and the homeland, the landscapes of Galilee
and the Izrael Valley, construction and creation. Song lyrics written by the
best Erets-Israeli poets often used third-person plural verbs to express a
national, collective ‘I’.
Many songs later included in the Hebrew song repertory are by identifiable
composers who considered their efforts as contributing to the building of a
renewed Hebrew culture. As a nation of immigrants, Erets-Israel lacked a
long-standing tradition of folksong. The goal of the national movement
included a rapid realization of folksong in the revived Hebrew language,
and composers wrote hoping to achieve a wide circulation. In their search
for musical roots, many composers of Erets-Israeli song adopted the
Dorian mode to evoke an older style. The Yemenite trill was also used, as
was rhythmic syncopation.
Many country, shepherd, ceremonial, children's and holiday songs were
composed in the 1930s and 40s. Eastern influences existed in songs from
Eastern composers such as Sarah Levi, Nissan Cohen Melamed and
others, or by means of environmental influences on composers such as
Yedidiah Admon, Nahum Nardi, Emanuel Amiran and others. Internal and
external political events transformed Erets-Israeli song at that time; ArabJewish conflicts highlighted ‘Watchmen's Songs’ and ‘Defenders' Songs’.
Attempts to create a rural culture encouraged compositions from working
settlements, particularly those composers from the Kibbutz movement such
as David Zehavi, Mattityahu Shelem, Jehuda Sharet and others. The
encouragement for young Israelis to enlist in the British army during World
War II inspired Hebrew ‘Army Songs’ composed by Mordecai Zeira, Daniel
Sambursky and others. The Holocaust brought the influence of Yiddish
village songs, along with political and propagandist Russian tunes.
The War of Independence and the establishment of the State of Israel
brought about the conclusion of the era of Erets-Israel. Approximately 4600
Hebrew songs were circulated and sung during this epoch and of these
approximately 57% could be considered Eretz-Israeli.
2. After 1948.
(i) Folk music.
Diverse Israeli songs were discernible immediately following statehood, a
direct continuation of Eretz-Israeli song. Mourning and bereavement songs,
memorials to the Independence War and victory songs were heard along
with songs influenced by foreign dances (tango, rumba, paso doble and
mamba), and songs, both new and translated, that were products of
festivals of European and American popular songs.
Composers continued writing in the period after statehood, and in the
1950s a ‘country song’ or ‘shepherd song’ style emerged that was a
continuation of the ‘rural country’ style of the 1940s. Texts drew on pastoral
and rural settings, florid language and cries of ‘hey’ and ‘ho’. Melodies were
in minor scales and modes with relatively simple structures. Accompanying
instruments included the acoustic guitar, which often dictated harmonic
accompaniment, accordion and the Arab clay drum. Special dances
developed at this time, known as ‘folkdances’.
Representative composers of this period include Emanuel Zamir (1925–
62), Gill Aldemah (b 1928), Amitai Ne’eman (b 1926) and Josef Hadar (b
1926), who formed the first generation born in Israel (most were accordion
players). Lahaqat Ha-nahal, the first military performing troupe, was
created in 1951 for the Israeli army to entertain soldiers with skits and
songs portraying Israeli army life. The international recognition of Tsahal
(lsraeli army), raised the status of military performing troupes and thus of
Israeli song. A large repertory of songs was created by military troupes,
who were awarded top honours in song festivals. These troupes performed
extensively, providing venues for many who would later become leading
artists, composers, arrangers and directors.
Materials for the troupes were commissioned from the best Israeli
composers, among them Alexander Argov (1914–96) and Moshe Velensky
(1910–97), who were also prolific Erets-Israeli composers. Other Israeli
composers who wrote for the troupes include Nurit Hirsh (b 1942), Matti
Kaspi (b 1949), Aryeh Lavnon (b 1932), Yair Rosenblum (1944–96), Naomi
Shemer (b 1930), Yohanan Zarai (b 1930) and Dov Zeltzer (b 1932). A
significant number of Israeli composers took advantage of writing for
military troupes.
A transformation of Israeli song took place in the latter half of the 1960s.
The accordion was replaced by the electric organ, the Arab clay drum was
replaced by a drum set, and electric and bass guitars were added. This
transformation stimulated the rise of ‘beat’ and rock groups in peripheral
areas. The band, Hahalonot Hagvohim, heralded the introduction of rockstyled Israeli song. Many performers, among them duos (Ran and Nama,
Ilka and Aviva, Ha-dudaim, Ha-parvarim), trios (Shloshet Ha-metarim,
Gesher Ha-yarqon), and troupes (Batsal Yarok, Ha-tarnegolim) in addition
to hundreds of singers, enriched the Israeli song repertory.
The Six-Day War represented a watershed for Israeli song, flooding the
country with ‘homeland’ songs resembling Eretz-Israeli homeland songs.
Together with ‘countryside’ songs, homeland songs were integrated into
the nostalgia that inundated Israel in the 1960s. The blend of old and new
homeland songs formed a current of Israeli music that is referred to as
‘Songs of Erets-Israel’. Naomi Shemer (b 1930), composer of the song
Yerushalayim Shel Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold), became symbolic of this
era.
Television broadcasting began in 1967 in Israel, providing venues and wide
exposure for performers. In this era, a number of songwriters also doubled
as performers. Shalom Hanoch, Samuel Kraus, Matti Kaspi, Yehudith
Ravitz, Schlomo Gronic are composer-singers who were active as
independent soloists, while others worked in groups, duos or ensembles
(Ha-lul, Ha-churchelim, Ha-keves Ha-shishaasar). The talents of Arik
Einstein over the course of 30 years stimulated composers such as Shalom
Hanoch (b 1946), Micky Gavrielov (b 1949), Yoni Rechter (b 1951) and
others. The group, Kaveret, made its first appearance at the beginning of
the 1970s, and despite their brief period of activity, introduced a new sound
to Israeli song. A new Hasidic song style developed after the Six-Day War,
influenced by annual festivals of Hasidic songs taking place as early as
1969. Hasidic songs employ biblical and prayer book texts, mostly
repeated verses with tunes mostly in minor keys, intermediate ranges (an
octave to a 10th), simple structure, regular rhythm and basic harmonic
progressions (I–IV–V).
The influences of Eastern Jewish communities were felt before the
establishment of the State of Israel, owing to the presence of Yemenite and
Arab songs. After the Six-Day War, especially since the 1980s, ethnic
consciousness grew, and Eastern styles became an important marker,
known as the Eastern Mediterranean style. This style includes the use of
melisma, the augmented 2nd and melodic ornamentation with the range of
quarter- and half-tones. Instrumentation generally consists of electronic
instruments, electric and bass guitars and drum sets, and is expanded at
times to include, the ‘ūd, qanūn, and darbouka. Among composers
associated with this style are Avihu Medina (b 1948), Boaz Sharabi,
Shlomo Bar and others.
In the first half of the 1990s, singer-composers who performed their songs
with their ensembles gained prominence, such as Yuval Banai with the
group Meshina, Arkadi Dukhin with Ha-haverim Shel Natasha, Aviv Gefen
(b 1971) with Ha-ta‘uyot, Rami Kleinstein (b 1963) with Hmo'etza, Shlomo
Arzi (b 1949), Yehuda Poliker and many others.
(ii) Popular music.
The first signs of a popular music industry are found in the mid-1930s with
the setting up of a record company and a radio station. Professional
immigrant musicians from Germany and Poland opened venues for music
theatre and cabaret in the growing cities of Haifa and Tel Aviv, where
contemporary European songs were sung with Hebrew texts. The diversity
of styles can be heard on the 1933 recordings Mi-shirei erets Yisra’el
(‘Songs from the land of Israel’).
Although these musics continued to be performed after the state of Israel
had been established, up until the 1970s popular music was dominated by
state-controlled cultural policies and mass media. The Israel Defence
Forces (IDF) entertainment groups (lehakot tsva’iyot) were characteristic of
this period. They performed songs which combined ‘native’ elements with
international popular styles, were arranged as group songs with short solo
sections and were initially accompanied by accordion and derbuka (drum).
These songs attained wide popularity and were disseminated on LPs and
by radio. By the 1970s the distinction between military and civilian artists
had become blurred and IDF artists became major stars.
Other songs of this period included the pizmonim or shirei meshorerim
(‘songs of the poets’) performed by duos or trios, such as Duda'im,
Parvarim and Shlishiyat Gesher Ha-yarqon, and were accompanied by
acoustic guitar. Unlike previous genres, these songs stressed individual,
urban experiences rather than collective or national topics. During the
1950s popular musics emerged based on Iraqi and Egyptian urban styles.
These were performed in bars and at parties by Jewish immigrants from
Arab countries. Greek popular songs, performed in Hebrew, became
popular during the 1960s, and these and songs derived from Arab styles
were perceived as oppositional to musics sanctioned by the cultural
establishment.
From the 1970s onwards Israeli popular musics have diversified and have
been increasingly influenced by Anglo-American styles, particularly rock.
Contemporary popular styles may be divided into four categories. Firstly,
pop and rock of foreign origin, particularly from the UK and USA. Secondly,
shirei erets Yisra’el, which includes ‘folk’ songs, IDF ensemble songs and
popular songs in a folk spirit, particularly those composed by N. Shemer.
Thirdly, Hebrew songs in Western popular styles such as disco, rap and
middle-of-the-road. Israeli rock was started by a group of artists including
Arik Einstein, Shalom Hanokh and Shmulik Kraus, who were influenced by
the Beatles. The most influential Israeli rock band continues to be Lahaqat
Kaveret (‘The beehive band’) who performed in 1971–3. Many Hebrew pop
songs are influenced by Europop and Israel has twice won the Eurovision
Song Contest. Fourthly, musiqah mizrahit (‘eastern music’) developed in
the early 1970s which combines Greek, Turkish, Arab and YemeniteJewish styles and instruments with Western popular forms. Associated with
the working class it achieves huge sales and has had a lasting appeal to a
wide audience.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Shiloah and E. Cohen: ‘Major Trends of Change in Jewish Oriental
Ethnic Music’, Popular Music, v (1985), 199–223
T. Bensky, J. Braun and U. Sharvit: ‘Towards a Study of Israeli Urban
Musical Culture: the Case of Kiryan Ono’, AsM, xvii/2 (1986), 168–209
M. Regev: ‘The Musical Soundscape as a Contest Area: “Oriental Music”
and Israeli Popular Music’, Media, Culture and Society, vii (1986), 343–55
J. Halper, E. Seroussi and P. Squires-Kidron: ‘Musica Mizrahit: Ethnicity
and Class Culture in Israel’, Popular Music, vii (1989), 131–42
M. Regev: ‘The Field of Popular Music in Israel’, World Music, Politics and
Social Change, ed. S. Firth (Manchester, 1989), 145–55
M. Regev: ‘Israeli Rock: or a Study in the Politics of “Local Authenticity”’,
Popular Music, xi/1 (1992), 1–14
M. Regev: ‘Musica Mizrahit, Israeli Rock and National Culture in Israel’,
Popular Music, xv (1996), 275–84
E. Seroussi: Popular Music in Israel: the First Fifty Years (Cambridge, MA,
1996)
A. Horowitz: ‘Performance in Disputed Territory: Israeli Mediterranean
Music’, Musical Performance, i/3 (1997), 43–53
III. Arab music
Before the creation of the state of Israel (1948), the region was mainly
inhabited by Arabs, and various genres of Arab music played an important
role in religious and secular ceremonies and everyday life. At the end of
Ottoman rule (1517–1917), Muslim and Christian Arabs formed over 90%
of the population. The vast majority of these Arabs were Sunni Muslim.
From 1948 onwards Jewish interests became dominant.
1. Folk music.
The most authentic and pervasive kind of Arab music in Israel has been the
rich folk music practised by Bedouins, farmers and (to a certain extent)
town-dwellers. A characteristic repertory of songs and dances separately
involving women and men enhance the various events of life in Bedouin
encampments as well as in small or large agrarian villages inhabited by
Muslims, Druzes, Christians or mixed populations. The literary,
performative and musical components of the sequence of traditional and
improvised songs marking any given event all depend on talented
individuals who are able to combine the gifts of poet, musician and
performer. Normally not all villages are fortunate enough to have a poetmusician within their midst, so they have to bring the best known of them
from afar. A normal performance requires the participation of two poets
who alternate in singing the verses of certain genres. These are mainly
improvised, like the popular Middle Eastern four-line stanzas, the ‘ataba, or
the argumentative dialogue in sung verses, the huwar. On special festive
occasions, four poet-musicians participate.
Most ceremonies are held outdoors and an active audience takes part by
uttering responses, hand-clapping and dancing the debka (chain dance).
This is accompanied by a flute, urghul or mujwiz (two types of a double
clarinet), the main instruments used in the villages.
2. Urban music.
From scattered information provided mainly by European travellers, we
know that under Ottoman rule Arab art music was occasionally performed
in coffee houses and at weddings in urban centres. In style it was
essentially similar to that of Turkish, Lebanese, Syrian and Egyptian music
of the period: singer, supported by instrumentalists of the takht ensemble
(see ARAB MUSIC, §I, 6).
From 1920, when Palestine was under British Mandate, Christian churches
in Jerusalem, Ramalla and Nazareth stimulated and sponsored musical
activities through educational work and events outside the regular church
services. The repertory consisted of a mixture of Arab and Western music.
In the city of Haifa, Ibrahim Bathish founded a music club which played an
important role in the development of local art music. One of its graduates,
Selim Hilou, became a prominent Lebanese composer and singer of the
prestigious muwashshah vocal genre. Among his other writings he has
devoted an important book to this subject. After the creation of the state of
Israel, three Haifa club graduates became central promoters of Arab
musical activity in the northern part of the country: Sudki Shukri, Michael
Dermalkonian (who also studied Western music) and Hikmat Shaheen.
Through music education a number of performing groups gradually
emerged, sponsored largely by the establishment.
The traditional transmission of Arab art music is through assimilation,
listening to the fundamental aspects of the art as performed by great
masters, or through private lessons given by renowned musicians to
interested individuals. Alongside this, an official and formal method of
teaching came into being with the establishment in 1951 of a programme
for training Arab music teachers at the Haifa Conservatory. In 1963 Suheil
Radwan, one of the first trainees, became head of the department of Arab
music at Haifa.
The Haifa Arab music department fostered a musical renaissance in
schools, clubs and cultural and community centres throughout the country,
including the establishment of orchestral ensembles and choirs. Most
ensembles included Jewish musicians who had migrated to Israel from
Iraq, Egypt and Syria. Muslims, Christians and Jewish musicians worked
side by side in a musical community which created a bridge of fraternity
between Arabs and Jews. The foundation in 1965 of an Arab-Jewish
centre, Beit ha-Gefen, in Haifa, was crucial in this process, and musical
activities took place there.
In 1957 the Radio Broadcasting Authority founded the first professional
orchestral ensemble. Its first director was Ezra Aharon, a famous composer
and ‘ūd player originally from Iraq. In the 1932 Cairo International Congress
of Arabic Music, he had led the official Iraqi ensemble under the name
‘Azzuri Efendi. Gifted Jewish instrumentalists from Iraq, Egypt and Syria
formed the radio ensemble, later joined by two Arab violinists. Arab singers
were employed to sing on radio programmes, and by the 1970s Arab
singers and composers were participating in annual festivals held by the
radio stations of major cities. Folk, art and popular music programmes were
regularly shown on the Arab section of Israeli television.
Most recently some small Arab-Jewish groups have been established
containing fine bi-musical instrumentalists conversant with Arab, Jewish
and Western art music styles. Their repertories include interesting
arrangements of traditional Arab and Israeli music. The most famous of
these ensembles is the Bustan ensemble, using qānūn, guitar, banjo, ‘ūd,
violin, flute, bass and Arab percussion. The group combines an eclectic
mixture of musical influences and has gained an international reputation.
© Oxford University Press 2007