New Musical Voices in Israel

Previous, ideologically tinged tendencies have become replaced by individualism, veering away from conventional stereotypes, even those of the avant-garde. Instead, attempts at being communicative, without being tied to any ideology or Weltanschauung, whether aesthetic, national, social or whatever else, have become more prevalent, endeavouring to establish a more direct appeal to audiences which until recently were alienated from modern music. Innovative as some of the newer elements of local music may be, novelty as such is no more demonstrated in the once fashionable aggressive manner intended to épater les bourgeois. A more personal, in many ways natural, interaction with an environment that in itself has become novel, is the predominant quality of recent tendencies. Nevertheless, many of the newer works sound as if they could not have been composed anywhere but in Israel, even though formal identification-marks may be absent, each because of a certain quality - not always easily definable - of its own.

One of these composers is Stephen Horenstein* (born 1948, in the USA). He employs all kinds of banging, booming, tolling, ringing, blowing, whining, bowing and plucking instruments, without neglecting such conventional ones as the harp or cello. All are engaged in producing overwhelming masses of sound, but also seductively delicate ones, roaring silences and soothing calm. This diversified array of sound-makers, not surprisingly, did not quite fit in with any of the established niches of Israel's modern music. Consequently, Horenstein eventually found himself compelled to set up an establishment of his own - the Jerusalem Institute of Contemporary Music. Pied-Piper-like, he has assembled an impressive following of youthful devotees, as well as older admirers.

Horenstein's points of departure are Charles Ives and Black American music. This already singles him out from most other local composers, born or educated in Europe, or disciples of these born there. He is intrigued with Ives' way of musical layering: independent elements which move separately, each in its own horizontal stratum, differing from each other, not only in their melodic lines, if any, as in traditional polyphony, but also in other aspects, such as sonority, tempo, rhythm, length of sounds, or tonality. Nevertheless, they integrate into one meaningful whole when listened to simultaneously, or vertically, not only along their horizontal lines. Composition, in Horenstein's own words, is the "juxtaposing of heterogenous musical elements in processes evolving into crystallization of these elements." Such a stratification implies contrast, so as to lend significance to the juxtaposition of diverse stratas. "The contrast of timbre, tonality, rhythm and other components highlights the independence of each stratum, but at the same time cascades into an integrated whole." One echo of Black American music is Horenstein's use of the saxophone, displaying the instrument's peculiar sonorities without being necessarily jazzy.

Arriving in Israel, Horenstein fell under the spell of the country's landscapes, its society with its diversities and tensions, traditions, colours, phenomena of light and shadow - all different from his previous experiences. Unlike European-born composers, pre-conditioned by Romantic-inspired exoticism, Horenstein could respond to his new environment in a spontaneous, personal manner.

Concepts of time and space that strike him as characteristically Israel-linked, such as those related to desert and mountain scenery, make him respond with a dense cacophony contrasting with simple, delicate lyricism or even a charged silence. To accomplish this, ancient and traditional as well as modern instruments, including homemade ones, are brought into play. The vastness of space and time, such as in the desert, is expressed musically by a prolonged, seemingly endless slowness of notes.

In biblical themes, always a major challenge for a roots-searching newcomer to this country, Horenstein avoids traditional elements such as cantillation or descriptiveness. He prefers attempts at realizing the imaginary sounds evoked by biblical episodes. In Agadot ("Legends," 1985), a "Suite of Musical Quotations from the Bible," King David is represented by the imagined sound of his orchestra, described in the Bible as instruments of fir wood, harps, psalteries, timbrels, cornets and cymbals. Sonorities associated with these instruments dominate this section of the work. "Elijah's Theophany" symbolizes an earthquake, not by referring to the phenomenon itself but by expressing the sense of horror that it instills. "Ezekiel's Vision" is conjured up by an amorphous, nebulous blend of sounds, almost defying analysis, creating a visionary, unearthly effect.

On a larger scale, Horenstein's music takes up the demanding challenge of responding to an open-air environment. In "Seven Faces of a Garden" (1981) seven different ensembles perform near seven sculptures in the Israel Museum's Billy Rose Sculpture Garden. Each group relates to the specific character of its sculpture, while all attempt also to reflect the mood of the surrounding Judean hills.

Although it is composed music, much of Horenstein's oeuvre is as yet unwritten, performed either by himself on the saxophone or flute, or by an ensemble under his direction, leaving a fair amount to controlled improvisation. This is where Charles Ives re-enters Horenstein's musical biography. "I would not like to hear only one of my works performed during my lifetime, as did Ives." Still well under fifty, he worries that his works may become unperformable if not written down for posterity.

In the music of Ari Ben-Shabetai (born 1954, in Jerusalem), a determining factor is his disillusionment with atonality and with the avant-garde. He feels justified in saying this, because he himself belonged to these currents once, and even admits to having liked them. He is a kind of prodigal son in music, coming back to tonality and, as he confirms, enjoying it. Not tonality in its conventional sense, though. He has not turned his back on modern music. On the contrary, he attempts a new synthesis between the atonal and the tonal, trying to merge the two seeming opposites. He maintains that "these two diametrically-opposed extremes, as they were considered to be, are in reality not so far apart," and that "their proper simultaneous integration bears a great musical potential."

Ben-Shabetai is a Romantic at heart. When listening, unpreparedly, to his "Three Songs in Romantic Style" (1983), the first impression is of being transported back to a Schubert-Schumann-like mood. The words are German - one of the texts is even identical to that of a Schubert song - and the piano part sounds deceptively harmonic. Only on listening more closely, does one notice that the chords and arpeggios do not progress in traditional, functional harmonies, and that the melodies do not allow the predictability of a definable scale or key.

What worries Ben-Shabetai is the audience's alienation from music as a result of modernist techniques. He himself, in quest of more communicativeness in music, is determined not to compose for his desk drawer. "A composer is dependent on his audience. If he denies this, he is a liar." According to his musical credo, musical composition from World War I to the beginning of the 1980s, including minimalism and other modernist currents, are no more than an intermediate stage, experimental, but lacking any works of intrinsic significance. Their value, for him, lies only in creating material for a new synthesis from these different elements so as to achieve the kind of music that can again warm people's hearts and counteract the previous alienation. "Avant-gardism for its own sake is not worthwhile. Novelty for its own sake is insignificant."

As one of his strongest sources of inspiration he singles out Alexander Scriabin, although modernists Marc Kopytman and George Crumb were among his teachers. The search for novelty, or doing things that nobody has done before, is not among his musical concerns. Therefore, he insists, his works do not resemble each other. In spite of that, he inclines to composing music that is fast, asymmetrical and irregular in rhythm, to express the characteristics of modern times as he perceives them. "Too much slow music is written nowadays," he observes, pointing out the discrepancy between such music and the energies in contemporary life. These energies are apparent in some of his recent works, such as the scherzo movement of Sinfonia Cromatica and Forte-Cello-Piano.

Ben-Shabetai does not attempt to be deliberately "Israeli" in his music, as he himself declares. However, he admits to indirect influences of the country on his music, due to the very fact that he lives here, was educated in its culture, and is part of its everyday life. He avoids clichés that could pass as "Israeli" in tonal, rhythmical or ethnic elements. He points out, however, the musical expression of feelings associated with war and peace, optimism and depression, in a very personal

way, which would not have evolved in the same way anywhere else. His cello concerto "Ezekiel," for example, emerges from the consciousness of the composer as an Israeli, creating his own, personal musical image of the Vision of the Dry Bones, which is Israeli music in this particular sense. But a search of his music for stereotypes that could be labelled "Israeli" would yield no results.

To compose music that is distinctively Israeli or Jewish in any sense is not an aim of Eitan Steinberg (born 1955, Jerusalem). This does not mean, though, that he rejects traditional elements as sources to draw upon. For

him, the musical traditions of the various Jewish communities are an immense treasure-trove - among many others, he hastens to add, without feeling that the two tendencies might be mutually contradictory. Traditional Jewish elements do indeed enrich his musical palette - not to be used exclusively, but in appropriate proportion with other sources of sound, including those of other cultures.

For this broad-minded musical attitude, Steinberg is indebted to Luciano Berio, whom he met first in 1984, in Israel, after having studied here with Marc Kopytman. "This is the best imaginable sandwich in music education," says Steinberg, referring to his studies with the two masters.

Kopytman had already encouraged his utilization of ethnic traditions. Berio provided a further widening of his horizons, and contributed to his developing a sense of proper proportions. "Everything is welcome as a source of inspiration and of sound, or as raw material." Placing the emphasis on one musical culture, even one's own, while there are so many others, would be disproportionate and therefore wrong. For Steinberg, Israeli culture is just one, however significant, segment of world cultures, not necessarily a predominant one, no more than are the others. Opening himself to the widest possible range of sources of inspiration means for him an inevitable enrichment of his creative process.

Such openness to multi-faceted influences does not necessarily lead to eclecticism. In spite of the distinctly recognizable personal note of his works, Steinberg insists that music does not have to be original or inventive. "There is so much to be discovered, but there is nothing novel to invent. To say 'I invented this' seems petty to me." Far from adopting any specific techniques or styles, he responds to certain basic musical attitudes or principles wherever he happens to find them. Emotion, for instance, is for him by no means the most significant factor in music, contrary to European conventions of certain periods. There are fascinating musical phenomena in non-western cultures which do not concern themselves with the emotions at all. Music is, above all, a matter of frequencies that touch us. There are frequencies and their combinations which may touch us not at our emotional centre but at some other receptive point, and leave their mark there. Our consciousness of sound, for example, its nuances and interactions, can make us respond to its force, subtleties or attractiveness on a level other than just emotional, as was well-known to ancient cultures such as the Chinese. Sound and its modes of functioning can evoke our spiritual responses in terms altogether different from love, hate, despair or excitement, if only our awareness of it is well enough developed. This awareness, as a potent factor in the creative process, also transcends the functions of intellect as a determining principle of musical form: "The intellect is not the boss." Rather than letting the intellect devise a musical structure, Steinberg believes in spontaneity and intuition as leading forces in a musical stream-of-consciousness-like process. This is one of the reasons why his works, though communicative and effortlessly digestible, do not lend themselves easily to analysis of themes, motifs and melodic or rhythmic patterns.

Steinberg's perception of time became transformed as his acquaintance with other musical cultures increased. Time, supplying a mostly regulating framework in standard western classical music, came to assume the role of a positive, independent structural element that has something of its own to express, and not only to control the smooth progress of the melodic or other factors. Internal time, inherent in music itself or in the text that is part of a composition, is respected as a major factor, not a secondary one - a phenomenon encountered, for example, in Indian or certain kinds of African music, though in a different way.

In Steinberg's "Songs of Love and Place" (1985), the Yiddish and Hebrew languages display a proud presence, celebrating the composer's own roots, but so does Spanish. Thus a natural perspective in relation to another tradition is established, focusing not only on the verbal content of the text, but also on the language's musical qualities.

"Conversation in the 9th Person" (1988-91) presents nine conversing string instruments, independent not only in melodic lines and in movement, but also in sonorities. The anticipated climax assumes the form of an apparent anti-climax when all the conversants seem to be gradually disappearing.

The variety of different sonorities is highlighted even more, no less than the unpredictable melodic progressions or the irregular rhythmical patterns, in "The Old Man Who Said Why'" for mezzo-soprano and nine instruments (1990).

From the smaller forms, Steinberg is now turning to music theatre - not in the form of conventional opera, but in the sense of total performing art where all the components are of equal value: instruments, voice, acting, dance, text, language, symbols and electronic sounds. This would amount to a kind of extended Gesamtkunstwerk according to the concept of Richard Wagner or the Japanese No drama, where nothing is secondary and everything is devised by the composer himself. The first step in this new direction was taken in "Princess of Five Faces," premiered in the 1995 Kfar Blum Festival.

In any event, we have tried to show in this article that there is much more original music composition of this kind to be looked forward to from contemporary Israeli proponents of art music.