The excitement was palpable at the entrance to Claremont Hall of the Buchman-Mehta School of Music, formerly the Academy of Music, at Tel Aviv University. The seats of the elegant concert hall, together with its balconies and aisles and steps, were chock-a-block two weeks ago with people; on the large stage sat 90 young musicians in festive dress, ready to play all orchestral instruments, including those rarely seen among young musicians - French horns, bassoons, contrabasses, violas and batteries of symphonic percussion instruments.

The first notes of Dvorak's "Slavonic Dances" resounded in the silence, the most beautiful music heard in the concert halls for a long time. In the same way, Brahms' Fourth Symphony was performed at the highest professional level, as was Mussorgsky's virtuoso work "Night on Bare Mountain." Where did this gigantic orchestra suddenly appear from? Who are these youths who have so much enthusiasm and whose eyes are filled with joy as they play?

The Young Philharmonic Orchestra is a joint venture of the Buchman-Mehta school at the university, directed by Tomer Lev, and the Jerusalem Music Center, under the direction of Hed Sela; and it did not grow from a vacuum: If one takes a few steps back and studies its context, one can distinguish its place among the country's pyramid of orchestras.

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For this purpose, one must go further north to the pastoral campus at Givat Haviva near Pardes Hannah where the summer courses of Matan - the Hebrew acronym for Mifal Hatarbut Ve'haomanut Leno'ar (the cultural and artistic project for youth) - are held. This is where six regional orchestras of string instruments were brought together during July under the batons of six conductors, altogether 80 children from junior high and high schools, and they were later joined by musicians on wind and percussion instruments to form the Matan Youth Symphonic Orchestra.

Musicians from the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) and the conductor Barak Tal worked with them from 9 in the morning until 8 at night with two full rehearsals, two separate rehearsals for string and wind instruments, and two rehearsals for groups of the smaller instruments. Every detail was polished, every professional problem was solved, every musical and artistic idea was developed; and together with the curiosity and the enthusiasm of the children, and the natural discipline that was being created in them, this symphonic orchestra came to life. The young musicians have the chance (for most of them for the first time in their lives) to play with a real orchestra.

Now the picture of the pyramid of orchestras is nearing completion. At its base are the conservatories, 40 in number, located in various parts of the country and in which children are taught the basics of music. On the next and higher level, there is Matan, which brings together those who want to play and are suited to playing, elementary orchestral music. The Young Philharmonic, together with academic studies for outstanding students and an excellent continuing education program at the music center, are the next stage; and the apex of the pyramid awaits these students in the future: playing with the IPO or a quality chamber music ensemble such as the Tel Aviv Soloists' Ensemble or the Jerusalem Camerata.

But this is where the pastoral atmosphere ends and the beautiful picture turns ugly - because of an open hole, a threatening one, in this pyramid - a full level that is missing in the top part of the pyramid: between a body like the Young Philharmonic and other projects for outstanding students, and its apex, where one finds the elite orchestras of adults such as the IPO and the Tel Aviv Soloists. This is the layer of the beginning of professional life at the conclusion of their studies, the stage where the responsibility of the Israeli pedagogic establishment ends and the responsibility of the cultural establishment begins. If these youngsters dare to hold on at this stage to climb higher up the ladder, they will fall because it will collapse beneath them. If they dare to step on it as they climb higher, to advance, they will tumble.

Because what is waiting for them there, at the next stage? Will they join the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, which is being threatened with closure, or the Haifa Symphony, which has already been dismantled and reestablished and is now trying to get back on its feet, or the Ra'anana Symphonette, which plays at every event so that it will remain viable, or the Rishon Letzion orchestra , which is struggling to remain alive? To live on minimum wage, if one is to be paid at all, to play at all kinds of semi-cultural events under a directorship of a "temporary receiver"? Or to join the one of the weaker chamber orchestras suffering under imposed "rehabilitation plans," whose members - unlike the enthusiastic youngsters who are full of love for music and ready to conquer the world - are disillusioned and bitter?

No, that is not an option. After the excellent education, with its abundant resources, they have received and after they have reached a high professional level, these musicians will not choose artistic suicide. Instead, they will decide to go abroad. Excellent professional orchestras, at the highest level, at the stage before the leading orchestras, await them in Germany, England and the United States; and the audiences abroad are the ones who will enjoy the fruits of their professional studies in Israel. In this way, a shining torrent of the brain-drain is developing here.

The challenge lies at the door of the government, which is also responsible, just as it is for education and health, for culture. Instead of "implementing a responsible and determined economic policy," a definition that is mere camouflage for doing nothing and placing responsibility on the shoulders of the citizens, as the sociologist Shlomo Svirsky diagnosed it in one of his recent articles:

"The government's responsibility is to rule: to examine the present, to bring options for the future, to set goals and to lead [us] to them. The State of Israel is not a short-term investment," as Svirsky put it. It has to decide whether there is any need for the society to have musical education and musical performance; if not, then it should close down the orchestras and leave one representative orchestra for the elites, as is done in some of the neighboring countries; but if there is a need, then it must maintain them as needed, revive them and allow them to blossom.