Last update - 00:00 14/05/2007
First fiddle
On the day a committee is convened to discuss alternatives to the outdated national anthem "Hatikva," as proposed in an article in Haaretz ("Toward the next 60 years," by Amos Schocken, April 19), its members should be asked to change only the words, and not touch the melody. The first reason for this is the anthem's beauty and richness: It is rare to find a melody so suited to an anthem - balanced, rhythmically simple and with such great harmonic potential. "Hatikva," set in a minor scale that lends it a dark, somewhat sad hue, climbs the scale at the beginning with notes of equal length - as in Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" in his "Ninth Symphony" - and descends immediately afterward, releasing the tension created by the ascent. Again it rises and falls moderately, and then it begins to gather energy with one-octave jumps, with a storm of notes and an increasing harmonic rhythm; a storm that dies down and ends with a descent as in the opening bar. There is something complete about this melody.
What is off-putting about hearing "Hatikva" are its orchestral adaptations, mainly the one written for it by Bernardino Molinari, which is still being performed. After a somewhat crude and superfluous military drum roll, as a signal to the audience to stand, Molinari actually continues well, with caressing strings, and even invents a contrasting melody in a very imaginative counterpoint; but his continuation with the blast of the trumpets, with a crescendo, with the kitschy deceleration, with the five clashes of the cymbals at the end, is the quintessence of the national cliche, including the pathos and the intoxication from music that sweeps us along and enflames us. This ending tempts the conductors into a dandyish rendition, destroys the delicacy of "Hatikva" and endows it with chauvinism.
No less important than its beauty is the universality of the melody of "Hatikva," whose origins are totally unrelated to Zionism. As shown in a documentary that will soon be released, it is identical to the melody of the prayer "Rain, Go in Peace," in the tradition of Spanish Jewry, a melody that was sung at least 200 years before Shmuel Cohen of Rishon Letzion adapted the Romanian folksong "The Wagon and the Oxen" to Naftali Herz Imber's text of "Hatikva." The melody has Christian roots as well, including an ancient hymn, sung in unison, "Alta Trinita Beata," which praises the Holy Trinity; and its minor scale could easily be turned into an Arab maqam. With the proper adaptation, and a different text, Israel's Arab citizens could very easily appropriate it for themselves.
However, not everyone treats an anthem with awe. During its visit to the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv, the London Symphony Orchestra opened the concert by playing the British and the Israeli anthems; but conductor Colin Davis, who has delicate musical sensitivity, conducted them with only one hand, as if to say: These are not musical works, they don't deserve to be taken with the seriousness reserved for real music.
What attracts a larger audience in Israel - the classical concert halls or the soccer fields of the top league? Many people will be surprised to learn that the concerts win hands down. According to reports by the Science, Culture and Sport Ministry, during the last few years 1.25 million people have each year been coming to listen to classical music all over the country. By contrast, the latest press report, which also reflects previous seasons, shows that the top soccer league will attract only 910,000 people by the end of the season. Each year revenues of a quarter of a billion shekels are channeled to classical performing groups and less than half of that amount comes from public support. These figures seem to indicate that the businessmen who buy local soccer teams are investing in the wrong place, and are missing an attractive business opportunity.
Buy orchestras, not soccer teams
The opportunity missed is not only linked to the business field. The main thing these wealthy people - the "third sector," as they are called - are lacking is an opportunity to gain what they are pursuing in vain on the soccer fields: respect. Joining the world of classical music will guarantee their inclusion among the elite rather than their subverting it; because instead of seeking, in the bleachers of Jerusalem's Teddy Stadium, the company of shyster lawyers who have made it big, they will rub shoulders with the real thing: Supreme Court justices and their friends, who gather in the cool, aristocratic lobby of the Henry Crown Theater, on the other side of the city. In that way they will gain a more respectable - and cheaper - springboard to politics: For the price of three soccer players you can support an entire orchestra at double the current salary of its members.
The world of classical music also provides an entree into the international arena: As opposed to soccer, whose level is low and whose Israeli representation abroad is limited to a few isolated players who try to acclimatize themselves in foreign teams, hundreds of Israeli classical musicians travel the globe and are known for their excellence. Young people win competitions, children's choirs win gold medals at international song competitions, opera singers capture the stages and Israeli conductors find their place in large orchestras. And there is a history to that: Even before anyone here dreamed about a soccer team, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was already famous the world over.
Buy orchestras and choirs, I feel like telling the soccer team owners. Do the right thing. Bring the outstanding international players home: They would have returned on their own long since, to develop themselves and musical culture in Israel, were they not stuck at the bottom of the national order of priorities. And besides, isn't it preferable to comment to the workers about a wrong note in a concerto for oboe in A minor than to scream "Yallah Beitar!" at them?