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THE ISRAEL PHILHARMONIC 70TH ANNIVERSARY GALA CONCERT
Premiered on November 21, 2007 on PBS (check local listings)
ESSAY
A SPECIAL AFFINITY
By Tim Smith
It's not uncommon to find an orchestra that reflects the heart of its own community. Much rarer is the orchestra that reflects the very soul of its own country. The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is exactly that rarity.
Founded in 1936 by émigré musicians who left Europe as the seeds of the Holocaust were being planted, this ensemble has been, from the start, a bold, brave, brilliant answer to the invidious scourge of anti-Semitism, as well as a symbol of the solidarity and determination that built the modern state of Israel. The orchestra was historic on the day it played its first concert.
The road to that first concert starts with Bronislaw Huberman, a Polish-Jewish violinist who, as a prodigy of 13, played Brahms' "Violin Concerto" in 1896 for a Viennese audience that included the highly impressed composer himself. Over the next few decades, Huberman built a remarkable career throughout Europe and the United States; his playing was valued by leading conductors of the day and particularly noted for the intensely individualistic quality of his interpretations.
In 1933, appalled by the rise of the Nazis in Germany, Huberman canceled all of his concert engagements in that country and concentrated on an ambitious project: to recruit Jewish musicians who were being targeted by the wave of anti-Semitism and engage them in building an orchestra in Palestine. He believed that the new ensemble would enhance "the prestige of world Jewry" and provide a "cultural defense against the ignominious lies of Hitlerism." Huberman saw in Palestine the promise of a Jewish homeland, and saw in the orchestra a kind of musical homeland for displaced artists.
Seventy-five musicians, including principals from orchestras in Germany and Eastern Europe, joined Huberman's cause and, on December 26, 1936, the Palestine Symphony debuted at the Levant Fair Hall in Tel Aviv. That this was no ordinary orchestra was driven home by who stood on the podium -- Arturo Toscanini, the most widely revered conductor of the day, an artist well known for his antifascist views.
Toscanini accepted Huberman's invitation with the words: "It is the duty of everyone to fight and help in this sort of cause according to one's means." He declined payment from the Palestine Symphony, even for travel expenses, famously saying, "I am doing this for humanity." As Toscanini biographer Howard Taubman chronicled in THE MAESTRO: THE LIFE OF ARTURO TOSCANINI, the conductor's "heart went out to the musicians who had been victimized by Hitlerism," and he wanted "to reveal publicly his solidarity with the persecuted."
The newly founded orchestra could not have asked for a greater champion, a greater friend as it prepared for its debut. Toscanini chose a well-stocked program for the inaugural performance -- Brahms' "Symphony No. 2," Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony," overtures by Rossini and Weber, and excerpts from Mendelssohn's "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
According to an account from a musician, relayed by Toscanini biographer Harvey Sachs, the first rehearsal went well. But the second was not so smooth, and the players expected the conductor's notorious temper to be unleashed at them. Instead, "Toscanini said nothing. We were unhappy, thinking he didn't take us seriously. At the following rehearsal, he bawled us out terribly; we were delighted."
Players and conductor were enthusiastically received when the Palestine Symphony gave its first performance. Toscanini returned in 1938, as the situation for Jews in Germany was worsening. Things were hardly calm in Palestine. At one point during the conductor's stay, a bomb was thrown at the car carrying him and his wife. But nothing would stop the formidable Italian.
There was such demand for his concerts that throngs of people had to be turned away. Seeing that response, Toscanini opened a rehearsal to the public. When he got to the theater, 30 minutes before the rehearsal was to begin, he saw a deserted street outside and thought that he must have been wrong about the public's interest. But when he walked inside, he found the place already fully packed -- people had arrived hours early so they could experience this man, this orchestra, this statement of common cause.
During his 1938 visit, Toscanini decided to include pieces by Wagner on a program, the Preludes to Act 1 and Act 3 of "Lohengrin." There was some discontent about this within the orchestra, whose musicians knew all too well how Wagner's music and the Nazis had become hideously entwined. But Toscanini got his way, arguing that "nothing should interfere with music." (The Israel Philharmonic would not play Wagner again until 1981, and then only at the end of a concert, after conductor Zubin Mehta excused members of the ensemble who did not want to play the music and after offended members of the audience left the hall. There was considerable controversy, and today, the orchestra's ban on Wagner's music remains essentially in place, reflecting a deep wound from the Holocaust that has yet to heal.)
Top banner photo: Zubin Mehta leads the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
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photo: Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
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