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THE GOWN OF NIGHT
Muhammad Ghana’im
The gown of night
Envelops the desert
Engulfing tent and well
From the boundaries of night
The howling of jackals descends
To raise the dawn
Engulfing tent and well
Then came the dawn ...
What do the first 60 years of a nation sound like? Composing Israel begins to address this question by showcasing a wide range of art music composed in Israel since 1943. Piece by piece, one can hear the nation establishing its identity and exploring new aspects of its burgeoning and multilingual culture. Composing Israel producer Robert Fleisher was a junior member of the Northern Illinois University School of Music faculty in 1986, when he spent two months in Israel attending rehearsals and concerts and interviewing composers of the nation’s first three generations. All but two of the compositions heard here were recorded live during a New Music from Israel concert he presented in 1987, when NIU’s faculty and graduate student performers were joined by several Israeli guest composers and soloists—including pianists Michal Tal, Liora Ziv-Li, and harpist Ruth Maayani. Most Composing Israel works are receiving their first commercially released recordings.
In stirring performances by American and Israeli musicians, including members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Music Director Lahav Shani, Composing Israel presents ten works spanning six decades, created by nine internationally acclaimed composers—men and women, immigrants and natives. Their music reflects the wide variety of personal histories, musical training, influences, and aesthetic leanings within the still larger group of composers profiled in Fleisher’s critically acclaimed book Twenty Israeli Composers (Wayne State University Press, 1997). Recently issued in paperback, it is now also available digitally at digital.library.wayne.edu/item/wayne:WayneStateUniversityPress4430. The book’s first-person interviews provide engaging introductions to eight Composing Israel composers and a dozen more he met in 1986.
Composing Israel marks the 75th year of the State of Israel. The immigrant composers of the First Generation comprised a diverse group including Abel Ehrlich, but their era has come to be associated largely with the self-conscious “Mediterranean style” (blending French Impressionism with Middle Eastern sources) of Paul Ben-Haim and others determined to create a new musical language reflecting the ethnic pluralism and distinctive environment of Israel—at once ancient and modern, spiritual and secular, traditional and progressive. Native-born “sabras” such as Ami Maayani and their immigrant counterparts of the Second Generation, including Tzvi Avni, were influenced both by their First-Generation teachers and their own studies in the U.S. and Europe after World War II. The most eclectic and international Third Generation includes for the first time composers born in the independent State of Israel—such as Ari Ben-Shabetai, Tsippi Fleischer, Betty Olivero, Arie Shapira, and Oded Zehavi. These and many other composers of Israel’s first three generations have created a diverse and compelling body of works reflecting the nation’s heterogeneous cultural streams, from which new music continues to flow.
credits
released July 23, 2023
1 Paul Ben-Haim: Toccata (1943) 3:01
Liora Ziv-Li, piano
2 Betty Olivero: Bashrav (2004) 8:55
Members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra; Lahav Shani, conductor, Boaz Meirovitch, flute; Jonathan Hadas, clarinet/bass clarinet; Yigal Meltzer, trumpet; Ziv Stein, percussion; Yael Kareth, piano/celesta; Ari Vilhjálmsson, Saida Bar-Lev, violins; Matan Noussimovitch, viola; Linor Katz, cello
3 Tzvi Avni: Capriccio (1955/1975) 3:49
William Koehler, piano
4 Ami Maayani: Arabesque No. 2 (1973) 8:12
Elizabeth Brightbill, flute; Ruth Maayani, harp
5 Abel Ehrlich: Death of Dan Pagis (1986) 4:10
William Goldenberg, piano
6 Tsippi Fleischer: The Gown of Night (1988) 2:51
Voices of Bedouin schoolchildren (electronic collage)
7 Arie Shapira: Off Piano (1984) 5:48
Michal Tal, piano and amplified voice
8 Abel Ehrlich: The Dream About Strange Terrors (1986) 2:59
Elizabeth Brightbill, Deanna Mathews Kilbourne, flutes
Ari Ben-Shabetai: Three Romances (1986)
Liora Ziv-Li, piano
9 I 3:40
10 II 4:07
11 III 4:22
12 Oded Zehavi: Wire (1986) 19:19
Denise Lundine, soprano; Stacey Pearson Stamas, flute; Howard Kaplan, horn; Ruth Richards-Schlarman, harp; G. Allan O’Connor, percussion; Oded Zehavi, piano; Stephen Biagini, cello; H. Stephen Wright, conductor
