Musicians, conductors and composers constitute Israel's most successful cultural export industry.
Initially the direction was inward. They arrived here, to the geographic and musical desert, in a refugee ship. Dozens of them, chosen one by one from the magnificent community of Jewish musicians in Europe. When they disembarked together, in 1936, they made history: It was the spontaneous birth of an entire symphony orchestra, apparently the first, which like the goddess Athena, came into the world fully formed, equipped with all its instruments and ready to go.
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It was the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra, today known as the Israel Philharmonic. Its birth, it would turn out, also marked a change of direction. The Holy Land was no longer only a magnet for musicians from around the world, who wanted to be part of a project of cultural pioneering; it was also a fertile source of musical export. With the Philharmonic, the term "Israeli cultural ambassador" entered the world. As the only Israeli body that was among the world's leaders in its field, it was the only one that could place our country on the international musical map. The Israelis remain there to this day.
Since the 19th century, Western classical music has emerged as art that possesses a distinctive universal quality, which is capable of dissolving national and ethnic boundaries. The works of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, and no less of Bartok or Shostakovich, were indifferent to the origins of those who played them and conducted them: from Japan and Korea, China and India, to Eastern Europe and Latin America, it made no difference.
It's not easy to say what brought about the situation in which the Israelis, of all nations, left such a profound imprint on the world music landscape, compared to all the exiles from other countries. Perhaps it's Israeli ambition, the thrust to excel at any price. "Wherever Israelis arrive, you will find us in first place," a young Israeli violinist said recently in a conversation in Berlin. "In a quartet I will want to be first violinist and in the orchestra we will be the leaders in the various groups of the strings or the wind instruments. We will never sit in the last rows."
Maybe it's the provincialism, which posits only two possibilities. Either everything - meaning the lead singer in a large opera, a famous soloist or the conductor of the best orchestra - or nothing, which means doing professional retraining. "My students want either to sing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York or to leave the field," says a teacher of classical singing. "My recommendation - to sing in a choir and advance slowly - falls on deaf ears, especially of the parents."
Or, perhaps, the Israeli musicians inherited the cultural freight of their great Jewish musical forebears in Europe. Once it was a fiddler on the roof, klezmer, Yidl mit den fidl, then the classical musicians. After them came the sabras. Who are violinists Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zuckerman if not the contemporary image of the great Jewish violin players of the modern era, the members of the "golden age," as they are called today - Carl Flesch, Jascha Heifetz, Yehudi Menuhin and many others, among them Bronislaw Huberman, who conceived and realized the idea of the Israel Philharmonic? And who is Daniel Barenboim if not a link in a vast chain, which encompasses also Vladimir Horowitz, Sviatoslav Richter and Artur Rubinstein?
Still, it seems as though something in this continuity has been shattered. These three Israeli "zeniths" - Barenboim-Zuckerman-Perlman - who continue to fly high above the world musical landscape, even though it is packed with so many excellent Israeli musicians, reflect a certain new spirit. The three were born in the 1940s - Barenboim arrived in Israel from Argentina at the age of 10, the two others were born in Tel Aviv - were more like the first fruits of a young, ambitious country than members of the Jewish musical dynasty. Their teachers, among them the great violinist and teacher Ilona Feher, were part of the pre-state generation. But they themselves are part of the new species of musician: independent and a bit impertinent. They were often documented frolicking and joking, and their famous group stood out more for its phenomenal talent than for its intellectuality, as had been the case with some of their Jewish predecessors. They were known by those envious of them as the "kosher nostra," especially when the violinist Isaac Stern was close to them. They took the musical world by storm and have remained at its peak to this day, especially Barenboim, whose place in the pantheon of the musical geniuses of the ages is assured.
In the meantime, many others followed in the footsteps of the three and achieved key positions in the world scene. Conductors such as Eliahu Inbal, Moshe Atzmon and Gary Bertini have conducted orchestras and opera houses in Europe. The singer Mira Zakai and the pianist Pnina Salzman have appeared on the most important stages with the greatest conductors. Musicologists of world renown, such as Simha Arom, and composers such as Shulamit Ran, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, and Chaya Czernowin have become key figures in their field. The names are numberless, as will be attested by orchestras and ensembles in Berlin and universities in Paris and New York, which employ Israeli musicians in senior positions, as lecturers, researchers, musical directors, concertmasters, composers and teachers.
Most of these gifted Israelis followed the usual path: studies in Israel, advanced studies in the international community, and back as adults - to play here, but especially to teach and shape the face of the new generation of musicians. In addition to those who have already been mentioned - Zakai, Bertini and Salzman - there are dozens of younger musicians, born in the 1950s and 1960s, who have won international competitions and have gone on to a promising international career, such as the violinist Hagai Shaham, the cellist Hillel Zori or the composer Betty Olivero. Some of those who did not return to Israel on a permanent basis maintain different types of ties with the homeland. The violinist Shlomo Mintz, for example, teaches regularly in the summer series of master classes Keshet Eilon, in Galilee. The Berlin-based violinist and teacher Ilan Gronich also teaches young string instrumentalists in summer courses.
The usual practice here is to condemn those who have severed their ties, instead of adopting them into the fabric of musical life in Israel constructively, by paving the path for them to follow back home. Those who were adamant did it by themselves, or at least tried. Shulamit Ran founded a biennale for modern music, Zuckerman established a school for violinists in Holon, Barenboim holds concerts for the benefit of musical education and raises large sums of money for the purpose, while displaying uncompromising involvement and expressing his worldview and his political and social opinions.
The years have passed but the musical talents only increased, and it seemed that the balance of migration among the young musicians in Israel continued to be natural and right. But in the past decade something changed, and the balance looks more negative than ever before. As if by means of a huge pipe, one end of which is planted in the rich natural musical resources in Israel, while the other deposits them on the other side of the ocean, the flow of musicians outward is intensifying.
The pride at the success of the Israelis overseas is justified, but the absence of reasonable government support for the musical infrastructure - in the realm of both education and performance - is diluting the ground that is supposed to absorb them on their return and is threatening to become barren. That barrenness is liable to put an abrupt halt to the growth of new talent and to stop the wheel of progress. Thus, before our eyes, the notion of the "cultural ambassador" is fading and losing its splendor and its relevance
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
