CDE84669 Enlighten

Product Description

Booklet notes by Prof. Dr. Michael Wolpe in Hebrew and English available here

This album of the Ben-Haim Trio presents musical pieces written by Israeli composers, most of them belong to the first generation of concert composers, who came to Mandatory Palestine, starting at the middle of the 1920's. Paul Ben-Haim, Hanoch Jacoby and Menachem Avidom were the most eminent and the most salient composers in this first generation. Each and every one of them was, in his own way, a pioneer in the designing of the Israeli concert music style since the 1930's until the 1980's. Artur Gelbrun, who came to Israel after its establishment, at the end of the 1940's, and Sergiu Natra who made Aliyah at the beginning of the 1960's, both brought a different, more universal approach, which referred less to the pursuits of the above mentioned first-generation composers.      

As he immigrated from Germany, Paul Ben-Haim changed not only his name but his musical style. These transformations are clearly displayed in his Variations on a Hebrew Melody (1939), both through the choice of a folk song melody inspired by the local atmosphere, and by the original and unique way of handling it. East and west meet together, and engage in a fascinating dialogue, full of emotion. This piece, the earliest one in the Album, was composed during the days in which the horrors of the forthcoming war and the great concern for the fate of the Jewish people in Europe troubled the composer deeply. Nevertheless, he conveys successfully the hope as well as the light surrounding him in his new homeland. All that constitutes the roots of his innovative style, which was to influence generations of Israeli composers.

Hanoch Jacoby, like Ben Haim immigrated from the Germany, changed his name, and listened attentively to the local spirit and landscape. He wrote his Trio in the darkest days of World War II. The melancholic mood of the theme, the dramatic and tragic spirit of many parts of the piece, and the plentitude of versions he had written before reaching the final one, tell us about the intense agitation he had been through while composing the piece. Like Ben-Haim, Jacoby chose the variation form not only as a homage to the European tradition and to the composing technique of his teacher Paul Hindemith, but also and perhaps even more so – again similarly to Ben-Haim – as a response to the oriental improvisation manner of developing a melody.

Menachem Avidom, same age as Jacoby, immigrated to Palestine earlier, and changed both his first and last and names, interlacing in it the names of both of his daughters' names (father of Daniella and Miriam). Avidom, who had studied music in Beirut and in Paris and lived in Egypt, met directly in his new homeland with local music, and was at the beginning of his career one of the leaders of national school in Israel. In fact, together with the composer Marc Lavry, he was the leading figure of the local style, which the composer and musicologist Max Brod named "the middle-eastern style". Unlike Ben-Haim and Jacoby, who stayed devoted to their personal style, and were almost uninterested in the new avant-garde composing techniques of their time, Menachem Avidom experienced several turnabouts during his lifetime. The Trio in this album represents very well the fascinating last decade of his writing, in which he actually tried to synthesize between the melodic simplicity that has characterized the beginning of his way, and the inventions of modernism which interested him always throughout his creative path.  Avidom's use of a twelve-tone row does not contradict neither the simplicity of his melody and nor the pure and colorful harmony. On the contrary – it constitutes an instrument to develop and purify his emotional expression as a composer.

Artur Gelbrun, a fascinating and unique composer, whose music was discovered rather late, and is now returning to the stage, did not change his name upon his immigration to Israel. Gelbrun had already crystalized his style at the beginning of his way, when he went from post-romanticism to a personal one, which refers loosely to the Dodecaphonic style (the twelve-tone technique).  Gelbrun's choice of the three-movements-model, according to the typical western tradition, fits together with the essentiality and precision of the personal expression of his writing.

Sergiu Natra, the youngest composer featured on the album, unlike Gelbrun, did feel it was necessary to change his name upon his arrival to Israel. His style went through great changes during the 1960's, not because of his move to Israel, but following his departure west of the Iron Curtain, when he was first exposed to the innovative styles and composing techniques of the West. Like Avidom, he oscillated throughout his life between traditional romantic expression, which had characterized him at the beginning, and the pursuit of developing a new composing style which would suit him. Natra's Trio no.2 presented in this album, like Avidom's Trilogue, represents well the last period of his work. In this period Natra expressed himself in a personal language, and like Avidom's work, it constitutes a synthesis between the different styles he experimented with throughout his work.

This album by the Ben-Haim Trio contains a diverse mosaic of Israeli works that tells the story of the formation of concert music in Israel of the 20th century. Listening to these pieces, sheds light on the searching processes of style, and of the solutions each composer has found while looking for personal expression.

Listening back to these works, it is fascinating to discover that alongside the unique characteristics of each of the artists, there is also something they have in common. The introverted atmosphere, the longing and melancholic mood in many parts of these works, tell the Zeitgeist in which they created. This spirit is the spirit of Israeli music.    

Prof. Dr. Michael Wolpe

Booklet notes by Prof. Dr. Michael Wolpe in Hebrew and English available here