[ Indistinct conversations, orchestra tuning ] This orchestra reflects the Israeli society, which is, I think, a very, very wonderful thing, that music and life is inseparable.

Three musicians in the orchestra -- my grandfather, my father, and my uncle.

I was born in Israel, so I'm Israeli.

I play the oboe and English horn with the orchestra for the last 38 years.

We also sit in the same stand, actually.

So it's, "Hi, Papa," in the same stand.

[ Speaking foreign language ] [ Speaking foreign language ] His son and his daughter -- that means myself and my sister -- and we ended up in the same orchestra continuing his way.

It has a tremendous finesse, and it loves to perform.

It's a real performance orchestra.

[ Indistinct conversations and tuning continue ] [ Speaking foreign language ] This orchestra is full of characters.

There's so many, like, interesting people.

Zukerman: It has such an extraordinary way of encompassing the audience.

They really take -- the audience takes the orchestra, and they take the audience.

It's absolutely extraordinary.

Very few orchestras can do that.

[ Down-tempo orchestral music playing ] Volé: My father grew up in Vienna and my mother grew up in Warsaw, and they got married here in Israel.

And I remember very well they were discussing visits of Arthur Rubinstein when he once came to Warsaw and the other time came to Vienna, and which interpretation did he use when playing in Warsaw or in Vienna?

And they were comparing it here to the interpretation which they heard here while he was playing a Chopin concert or Beethoven or Tchaikovsky or whatever.

And they were arguing, sometimes they were disagreeing.

They said, no, he did this cadenza a little longer here or shorter or faster or whatever.

It was very interesting to listen to their arguments.

Arthur Rubinstein, who came every year, I think, he came very often here.

He was a great friend of Israel and the orchestra.

His sense of proportion, dynamic, and rhythm was outstanding.

I learned so much from this man.

You know, I was sitting two, three meters from him and his playing was so much making music that you could learn from every phrase.

[ Mid-tempo piano music playing ] Volé: Rubinstein loved Zubin Mehta, he enjoyed playing with him all the time.

Whenever he could have had him, he preferred it.

He really enjoyed him.

They had a very good understanding together.

Mehta is one of the greatest accompanists, as a conductor to accompany, either soloists, either pianist or violinists, or singers in opera or in songs.

He does it fantastic.

[ Indistinct conversations, orchestra tuning ] [ Up-tempo piano music playing ] Mishori: '76, 18 of April, Rubinstein was 80 years old, 80 years old, and we decided to make them -- to do the last recordings of his.

It was the Brahms Concerto with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

He couldn't -- he was completely blind.

He couldn't see anything.

Never forget, Zubin Mehta take him by his hand, bring him to the stage.

We were shocked, the people of the orchestra, how he's going to play the Brahms Concerto not seeing anything.

And then he asked Zubin, "Please, help me to sit down."

He sat down, and they started to play the Brahms Concerto.

It was unbelievable.

Like a young horse, he jumped and played.

It was fantastic.

[ Mid-tempo orchestral music playing ] Mehta: Two.

[ Music continues ] Okay.

Now with the clarinets.

Shh.

One, two, three.

I was only 25.

And it was a love at first sight.

[ Music continues ] Swell.

Now piano.

Piano!

When he came first time, he was like the son of the musicians.

Now he's the father of the musicians.

[ Up-tempo music playing ] Well, it all began in 1961.

I was sitting in Vienna completely without any work, with my family and two children.

And I get a telegram saying to please come, if possible, to Israel in May because of the cancellation of maestro Eugene Ormandy.

It was a very good atmosphere.

Very good feeling.

And then they invited me again.

[ Mid-tempo music playing ] Pianissimo.

[ Speaking German ] I need to do the whole oboe thing again.

182.

Yehudin, you're not accompanying him.

I'm going with you more than with him.

Come, 182.

No, listen to him.

[ Indistinct conversations ] [ Mid-tempo music plays ] Taub: Zubin did many, many great things for the country with the orchestra and everything, definitely.

It's, I think, being a mensch, you know, being a human being, right, a good one, I mean one that understands.

Zukerman: The orchestra was formed by Bronislaw Huberman in 1936.

He collected musicians from Middle Europe and was able to somehow really convince a lot of people, I'm sure, to make sure that the Jewish people, the Jewish musicians in Middle Europe, have a place to perform, particularly around '33 -- '32, '33, '34, when all the problems began, he found a way to bring them here.

Volé: My grandfather, Jacob Surowicz, had been playing in the Warsaw Philharmonic for about 27 years, and he knew all the great musicians of that time, conductors, and soloists, and as such he of course knew Bronislaw Huberman very well, and they were very good friends.

And Huberman contacted him and asked him to look for young musicians, young Jewish musicians in Poland and help him arrange an audition so that he, Huberman, could come and listen to their playing and decide who of them will come to the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra.

[ Steinberg speaking German ] The first performances were with Toscanini and Huberman at the port, in a hangar, big hangar of the Port of Tel Aviv.

[ Speaking German ] [ Indistinct conversations, orchestra tuning ] Taub: I was 11 years old, and I heard the dress rehearsal with Toscanini.

An orchestra in those times, Israel, it was the Palestine Orchestra then.

It was a great thing for the people.

It's something special.

An orchestra here.

A big orchestra with such a great conductor.

[ Mid-tempo orchestral music playing ] [ Speaking German ] [ Waves crashing ] [ Music continues ] I was born in Ukraine, in Kyiv.

I was born here in Tel Aviv, in Israel.

From Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

I'm American, and I've been living in Israel for 32 years.

I played in the military band in Israel, and then I studied in the States, in the United States.

[ Music continues ] I was a student of the legendary concertmaster of this orchestra, that now he is retired already about 15 years, Chaim Taub.

Patterson: I studied with Mordechai Rechtman.

He was the principal player here for 45 years.

Came to study with him, and I did my audition in New York.

[ Speaking German ] My grandfather was a conductor.

My mother is a pianist.

And I was born to a very musical city like Novosibirsk.

So I studied there with Professor Bron.

[ Speaking foreign language ] I'm from the former Soviet Union.

I was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

It was one of the republics.

[ Speaking foreign language ] [ Music continues ] [ Speaking indistinctly ] Child: Johann Sebastian Bach.

Johann Sebastian Bach.

The premise is that I love music.

I just, I really, really love music.

And when you like something so much, when it's your passion, you find time for it.

And the truth is that I'm very sleep-deprived because I try to practice and there is orchestra rehearsal, there are my children.

But thank God we have concerts out of town in Haifa, in Jerusalem, and I always sleep on the bus.

I grew up in Israel, and it's impossible not to have heard about the Israel Philharmonic.

It was always in the background.

And since I was playing music ever since I was a child, my parents took me to some concerts.

My teacher was a former principal cellist of the Israel Philharmonic, Zvi Harell.

[ Up-tempo cello and piano music playing ] [ Speaking German ] Bernstein: And I'm terribly, deeply honored and profoundly touched to this orchestra, which I love like my family.

Everyone in this orchestra is so dear to me.

[ Rechtman speaking German ] Greenberg: After I graduated Juilliard, Maestro Mehta contacted my teacher and asked him maybe he can recommend someone to play with the Israel Philharmonic.

And, well, I had an audition, an audition in Carnegie Hall.

And there was a guy sitting next to Zubin, who Zubin was talking to him all the time.

And, well, I played okay, and I got the job.

And then I asked the gentleman what his name is, and he says, "Oh," he says to me, like, "You'll know my name when you get to Israel."

"Okay."

Anyway, I get to Israel, and there's a picture of this guy who I saw at the audition.

And who is the guy?

It's Frederic R. Mann.

The Israel Philharmonic is a cooperative.

That means we the players own and run everything.

On paper, Maestro Mehta works for us.

On paper.

We hire professionals to run the show for us.

We have a journal manager, we have a financial department, we have a subscription department.

But the highest governing body are the permanent members.

I think it's a very important thing that we're talking about, because we're sitting in the Mann Auditorium.

If the place is not clean, this is my house.

I feel like I'm the boss here.

So it's in my interest that things to be clean.

It's my interest that the orchestra play well, that we have the best conductors, and we play as best as we can all the time on the stage.

And I feel that this is the responsibility of every member -- of every permanent member of the orchestra who is a member of the organization.

[ Mid-tempo orchestral music playing ] Taub: This orchestra works very hard.

Because we had so many subscribers, you couldn't buy a ticket practically.

Only standing room only, because tickets were given, you know, from that person to his son, to his daughter, or something like that.

I mean, it was...

It was really -- I mean, I think the orchestra had the most abonnement of the world.

And we had to play many concerts.

Six concerts in Tel Aviv, three concerts in Haifa, and one concert in Jerusalem.

We had to repeat the program sometimes 12 times.

In '57, October '57, the orchestra moved to the home of today, the Mann Auditorium, which was, of course, a great, great change for the orchestra.

Can't forget the opening concert of that hall.

Lenny Bernstein was conducting.

Isaac Stern, Tortelier, and Rubinstein were the soloists of that concert, which was unforgettable also.

You know, Bernstein.

[ Vocalizes ] [ Mid-tempo orchestral music playing ] [ Speaking German ] [ Up-tempo vocalizing ] [ Speaking German ] [ Dramatic orchestral music playing ] [ Music stops ] Bernstein: Not bad, not bad.

I don't have a feeling of authority, really, in the sense that I am telling everybody what to do, but I am coaxing or playing it with them in a way.

It's very hard to describe.

Breathing with them, pulsing with them, suggesting.

[ Speaking indistinctly ] Good.

My father arrived in Israel with an illegal ship after traveling for about six months.

And he started his career here in Israel as a pianist.

This is what he did in Vienna.

He was a pianist and accompanist, and he wrote music for cabaret and chansons.

But when coming here to Israel -- or to Palestine, rather -- he could not continue doing that.

There was no audience for that.

There was no demand for that.

And he had to change his profession.

So he decided to try and learn the bass.

I remember as a little child listening to him practicing.

He was practicing hours, hours, hours.

Scales, études.

It was unbelievable.

I remember long before I started playing the bass, I knew most of these études and parts I knew by heart from the practicing of my father.

He played an audition, and he didn't go.

He was not good enough.

And took another year, practiced more, and then played an audition.

And the conductor that accepted him was Koussevitzky, who was a bass player himself.

So he really made it, and this was in 1951 or '52 and at that point, he joined the orchestra.

[ Speaking German ] Mishori: Bernstein came to Israel and told, "First thing what I want to do is to play for soldiers in Beersheba," who was liberated just a week before.

He took the orchestra.

They were sitting on stone -- they put the wooden chairs on stones, on rocks, and played with him Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" and Mozart.

That was something unbelievable.

[ Mid-tempo orchestral music playing ] Marck: This is my room, more music-oriented.

And you should also get a look at this picture because this is Zubin Mehta playing the double bass.

[ Chuckles ] I came to Israel as a tourist.

I was on my way to Italy to study.

I had the name of a very good teacher and a recommendation in Rome.

I was on my way to Rome.

And I bought my ticket from Boston to Tel Aviv, going back through Rome, and then back to...

I thought I would be a year in Rome studying.

And I came to Tel Aviv for two and a half weeks, or three weeks, whatever.

I was staying with my father's cousin.

And then my cousin got me an audition through one of his neighbors, who was a cellist, retired cellist, Israel Philharmonic.

And I literally knocked on the conductor's door, Zubin's door.

And Zeev Steinberg, the violinist, violist, was inside.

And I said, "Maestro, I would like to play an audition."

And he said, "Well, we had an audition already."

And Zeev Steinberg said, "Why doesn't he play on the viola audition?"

And that was my in.

So, these are our chickens.

[ Chickens clucking ] [ Up-tempo orchestral music playing ] They all come back to the same thing, and they say, "You guys have a sound that's full of passion that you don't hear anyplace else."

And that's nice to hear.

There is a special sound.

There is a special sound.

It's a very deep, dark, warm sound.

And it kind of surrounds you and holds you.

It's what we feel we can express.

You know, it's not like in Europe, everyone is, like, in a box.

Or in America, and everyone with a smile.

Here it's much more natural, maybe.

There are a lot of Russians, so former Soviet musicians in the orchestra.

Of course it influences on the sound.

It's open mind.

For me, it's not Russian and not Israel and not Hebrew.

It's something, you know, like feel at home.

It was taken of the orchestra.

After the Six-Day War in '67, there was a special concert, and I was lucky to take part in all those great events, really.

Another fantastic experience with Bernstein was after the Six-Day War when we played the Resurrection Symphony on Mount Scopus.

People really cried there.

That was something unforgettable.

He conducted the last movement of the Resurrection Symphony.

Isaac Stern played the Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto.

The Scopus was taken, retaken, opened up.

And so we went up for a concert.

And we played in this open-air theater.

And I remember I borrowed a large hat with a huge brim -- not so much for me, but I wanted to cover the violin because we were right in the sun.

There was no way to get out of it.

I came to Israel the first time in 1949.

And I don't know how many times I've been here, but it must be at least... what, a hundred since then?

I've been here throughout the history of the country almost.

But it's such a pleasure for me, I must tell you.

All this work, the overtime, it's all so worth it when you have people like that.

[ Mid-tempo orchestral music playing ] [ Traffic noise ] [ Indistinct conversation ] [ Bell ringing, indistinct conversations ] [ Orchestra tuning ] [ Man speaking indistinctly on P.A. ]

Volé: I had both parents on the same stage with my grandfather and later with my uncle.

So four people on the same stage.

And then when I grew older, I joined the orchestra myself.

My father is on the bass, and my uncle plays bassoon.

On the piano is my mother and her sister.

In the front, my grandfather plays the violin and I play the violin.

This was before I started playing the bass.

[ Indistinct conversations, orchestra tuning ] We arrived in 1973, and I think practically the next day I came to this very house, which is the home of Israel Philharmonic, to hear concert, and since then it has been nonstop events for me.

[ Mid-tempo orchestral music playing ] [ Indistinct conversation, orchestra tuning ] Shh.

[ Speaking Russian ] Olga Stern: [ Speaking Russian] [ Speaking German ] When I came in '59, there were mostly Polish people and Hungarian, German.

A few Russians.

I don't know.

Maybe one or two.

Nowadays, it's mostly Russians.

If you don't know Russian, you can't come to the Israel Philharmonic.

[ Speaking German ] [ Continues speaking German ] Gross: [ Speaking foreign language ] [ Laughs ] [ Continues speaking foreign language ] [ Mid-tempo orchestral music playing ] I was one of the soloists on the first tour of this orchestra, of the Israel Philharmonic, in German-speaking countries.

And what was extraordinary is to see how... And that was in '71.

So it was a long time after the war, really, that the orchestra was not in a speaking-German world.

Many musicians still from that time were in the orchestra that were -- that had to leave, that had to actually run away from the Nazis.

[ Speaking German ] It was very strange, you know, to see all these green bicycles and the armored gun vehicles.

And, you know, there were people that almost fainted.

And there, you know, were big flags of Israel, and under that it was written, "Welcome the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra."

[ Speaking German ] "Now we're going to play 'Hatikvah.'"

[ Speaking German ] [Speaking German ] [Speaking German ] I will never forget that five minutes of emotional wrenching inside.

It wasn't crying.

It was not a demonstration of emotional outlet.

It was just unbelievable.

For me, it was just the most extraordinary moment where a symbol like a hymn of a country can become so unique in a place where such tragedy took place.

[ "Hatikvah" playing ] The question of Wagner comes up all the time.

We played it in 1981 for the first time.

Since Toscanini did it.

Don't forget.

In the first programs of Toscanini, there was a Lohengrin vorspiel also.

But after that came the whole Nazi period.

You know, that was in '36 that he played it.

There was a big objection from the public, from the audience, and several times Zubin tried to perform Wagner, but... [ Applause ] And we have been talking about this for many years now, of how to do and how to perform the music of Richard Wagner with the utmost taste as possible.

And we came upon the conclusion so that we would not have in any way a captive audience.

In other words, there is absolutely no obligation for anyone.

We would like to play for you tonight some of the music of Richard Wagner, and we would like those of you to stay who would wish to.

But there is absolutely no obligation and we will not hold it against anyone.

You will not conduct Wagner!

You will not conduct Wagner!

[ Speaking German ] [ Down-tempo orchestral music playing ] [ Indistinct shouting ] [ Shouting continues ] Steinberg: [ Speaking German ] [ Continues speaking German ] [ Arguing in foreign language ] [ Music continues ] I guess that they will come, the orchestra will perform it, you know, after the generation of people who suffered from the Nazis, who came from the concentration camps, et cetera.

The younger generation later, I guess that it will be performed.

[ Music continues ] Mehta: From the musical point of view, I'm convinced that we must play it and we will play it one day because this is lacking in the musicians' education.

We cannot play the music of the family of Wagner, which is Strauss, Bruckner, Schoenberg, Mahler, and not play the main source of this musical information.

Leggiero.

Leggiero.

♪ Pum pum pum pum ♪ Zukerman: I played with the orchestra in '61.

The first time I played a youth concert.

And the next time I played was in 1968.

It was like basically coming home.

I had known, of course, many, many -- with Danny Benyamini and Chaim Taub and Uri Pianka and Rechtman and all these extraordinary musicians.

I knew them when I was a little boy.

We played chamber music together and so on.

So it was like really like coming back to a family.

It was not...

It's never been an orchestra like going to play somewhere.

It's like going back to play with your friends and relatives.

[ Speaking indistinctly ] Woman: Like this?

Yeah.

But not at you.

I'm only talking to him.

[ Down-tempo orchestral music plays ]