Israeli music's evolution over the last or forty years should be approached, studied and accepted... more Israeli music's evolution over the last or forty years should be approached, studied and accepted as a chaotic system rather than a well-defined, clearly integrated cultural and social phenomenon. Moreover, some will argue against the very validity of delimiting and defining such a cultural phenomenon in the framework and short span of existence of modern Israel. The forties and the fifties wishfully viewed the music in the land of Israel as the triumph of a nation-in-the-making integrative culture. Composers of European descent provided both the Western know-how in articulating the local idiom and the romantic view of folklore as the repository of the deepest and most authentic spiritual elements of ethnic groups. They shared the belief that artistic expression is a major link between land's mystic and people's sensibility and felt compelled to enroll in the historical task of forging such an expression and accelerating its embedding in the emerging cultural strata. Furthermore, unlike America, perceived by its pioneers as a no man's land, Palestine was for the Jewish pioneers of the 20th century an anciently promised, biblical land, enriched by the lure of the East. Socially and ethnically, young Israel strove to become a melting pot of more than a hundred Jewish communities and local Moslem and Christian ones. Politically, the State aimed at being the pole on which everything Jewish would be defined. The absorption and integration of local elements was, therefore, a desideratum, which helped making the Eastern Mediterranean style 1 in music the dominant idiom from mid-thirties to the end of the sixties. Without any doubt, the Eastern Mediterranean style enjoyed both the tacit and overt support of all those concerned with establishing and strengthening the new political entity. It had an ethos which people much loved to identify with as well as a number of clichés proudly exhibited by many a work. Undoubtedly, the general mood and ethos of young Israel were a favorable climate to idealization in which this musical trend fitted very well. Those composers who didn't adhere to the mainstream offered only a meager challenge, since avant-garde art was unacceptable at that juncture 2. * * * The sixties witnessed the coming into maturity and prominence of a group of composers who had previously been overpowered by the activism of the founding fathers of Israeli music. Most of them were born elsewhere, but young and receptive at the moment of their immigration, and therefore intensely exposed to the socio-cultural milieu around them. One counts as most distinctive Oedoen Partos, Mordecai Seter, Joseph Tal, Abel Ehrlich and Jacob Gilboa, all composers who embarked on musical activities drastically beyond what was fashionable to the Israel musical scene. These were years of Israeli composers' eagerly looking for encounters with the latest developments in Western music. Already established composers take the trip to 1 The term was coined by Max Brod 2 In the late thirties, Stephan Wolpe gave up fighting the local artistic establishment and left for America.
Israeli music's evolution over the last or forty years should be approached, studied and accepted... more Israeli music's evolution over the last or forty years should be approached, studied and accepted as a chaotic system rather than a well-defined, clearly integrated cultural and social phenomenon. Moreover, some will argue against the very validity of delimiting and defining such a cultural phenomenon in the framework and short span of existence of modern Israel. The forties and the fifties wishfully viewed the music in the land of Israel as the triumph of a nation-in-the-making integrative culture. Composers of European descent provided both the Western know-how in articulating the local idiom and the romantic view of folklore as the repository of the deepest and most authentic spiritual elements of ethnic groups. They shared the belief that artistic expression is a major link between land's mystic and people's sensibility and felt compelled to enroll in the historical task of forging such an expression and accelerating its embedding in the emerging cultural strata. Furthermore, unlike America, perceived by its pioneers as a no man's land, Palestine was for the Jewish pioneers of the 20th century an anciently promised, biblical land, enriched by the lure of the East. Socially and ethnically, young Israel strove to become a melting pot of more than a hundred Jewish communities and local Moslem and Christian ones. Politically, the State aimed at being the pole on which everything Jewish would be defined. The absorption and integration of local elements was, therefore, a desideratum, which helped making the Eastern Mediterranean style 1 in music the dominant idiom from mid-thirties to the end of the sixties. Without any doubt, the Eastern Mediterranean style enjoyed both the tacit and overt support of all those concerned with establishing and strengthening the new political entity. It had an ethos which people much loved to identify with as well as a number of clichés proudly exhibited by many a work. Undoubtedly, the general mood and ethos of young Israel were a favorable climate to idealization in which this musical trend fitted very well. Those composers who didn't adhere to the mainstream offered only a meager challenge, since avant-garde art was unacceptable at that juncture 2. * * * The sixties witnessed the coming into maturity and prominence of a group of composers who had previously been overpowered by the activism of the founding fathers of Israeli music. Most of them were born elsewhere, but young and receptive at the moment of their immigration, and therefore intensely exposed to the socio-cultural milieu around them. One counts as most distinctive Oedoen Partos, Mordecai Seter, Joseph Tal, Abel Ehrlich and Jacob Gilboa, all composers who embarked on musical activities drastically beyond what was fashionable to the Israel musical scene. These were years of Israeli composers' eagerly looking for encounters with the latest developments in Western music. Already established composers take the trip to 1 The term was coined by Max Brod 2 In the late thirties, Stephan Wolpe gave up fighting the local artistic establishment and left for America.
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