In 2021, for the first time in 65 years, String Quartet No. 1 by Grigory (Zvi) Kompaneyets was performed by the Carmel Quartet. The reconstruction of the work—whose score survives only in fragmentary form—and its presentation to the public also brings to light the story of the ensemble that originally performed it: the "Palestine String Quartet in memory of Joel Engel." Like the composition itself, this quartet had disappeared from the view of researchers for decades. The story of this ensemble, told here, opens a window onto the chamber music scene during the British Mandate and reveals the stylistic tensions that existed in the musical culture of Palestine at the time.
The string quartet plays a multifaceted role in the history of Western musical culture.[1] The ensemble consists of two violins, a viola, and a cello—all belonging to the same organological family (similar in structure but differing in size), which gives the group a homogenous sound. The string quartet is also the "root" of the string section found in the symphony orchestra. As a genre, the string quartet has been central to the world of chamber music from the mid-18th to the mid-20th century. Usually multi-movement, it is considered a complex and serious genre—a platform for experiments in musical form (as in the works of Haydn, Beethoven, and Brahms) and for autobiographical expression (as in Smetana, Janáček, and Berg). The classical canon includes some 200 string quartets by the "great" composers of the 18th and 19th centuries, along with many more by lesser-known composers. The quartet’s sonic homogeneity demands of the composer a distilled articulation of musical ideas—like a pencil sketch in sound, without the broad timbral palette offered by more heterogeneous ensembles such as the piano trio or clarinet quintet.
The string quartet also has symbolic weight in Western culture: it has represented the elevated status of chamber music for over 250 years—first in aristocratic leisure culture, then in the 19th-century bourgeoisie, and finally among the intelligentsia and pioneers of modernism. In direct continuity with its historical roles among the aristocracy, bourgeoisie, and intelligentsia, string quartet playing today is regarded both as a refined leisure activity for amateur musicians and as a branch of professional performance in concert halls.[2] Since the days of the Beatles, the string quartet has also become a symbol of prestige and sophistication in the field of popular music.
This article explores the integration of string quartets into the musical life of the Yishuv during the British Mandate. Like other cultural and administrative aspects of Israeli society, the local musical scene was significantly shaped during this period. As a territory that shifted from Ottoman to British rule, Mandate Palestine witnessed the emergence of a Western-style concert culture: the founding of music societies in various cities, ambitious attempts to establish orchestras and opera companies, and tours by renowned European artists. In the mid-1930s, a wave of Jewish professional musicians—many of whom had lost their positions in Europe—arrived to join the initiative of founding the Palestine Symphony Orchestra (later the Israel Philharmonic). With an audience of Central European immigrants eager for chamber music and string players facing the financial challenges of immigration, string quartet playing offered both artistic and economic opportunity. Moreover, the string quartet did not require a high-quality piano in the hall or home salon.
The role of string quartets in the development of musical life in Israel has so far gone largely undiscussed in scholarly research. This article argues that the partial attention given to the significance of quartets in music historiography stems both from the poor state of preservation of sources related to the local quartet scene and from the fact that some of the key figures involved in this scene eventually left the country. Their departure greatly reduced their ability to shape the historical narrative of music in Israel.
Alongside a fresh examination of known sources—such as concert programs and announcements in the daily press—this study draws on public archives of concert series (in the Tel Aviv Museum and in Rehovot), the archives of the Palestine Broadcasting Service, private collections (including those of Iziah Braker, Jakob Weisgerber, Klari Servas, and Shlomo Bor), and on efforts—only a few of them successful—to trace notated music from the period.
At the heart of the article is a composition whose score survives only in fragmentary form: String Quartet No. 1 by Grigory (Zvi) Kompaneyets. I was compelled to reconstruct the work from a historical recording in order to make analytical discussion possible (though the analysis in the present article will remain minimal). Both the work and the story of the ensemble that performed it—the Palestine String Quartet in memory of Joel Engel—offer a gateway to understanding the chamber music scene in Palestine prior to the Fifth Aliyah. They also illuminate the stylistic and repertorial tensions between Eastern and Western European influences in local musical culture, and allow for the reintroduction of forgotten or marginalized figures and ideas into the story of Israeli music—figures that were excluded because they did not fit the dominant Central European narrative. A reconsideration of the context in which Kompaniyets’s quartet was composed reveals a kind of "renaissance" of string quartet activity: a broad movement of composers and performers who, at least for a time, preserved the tradition of the string quartet—even as the cradle of that tradition was engulfed in the fires of war.
Before and After the Fifth Aliyah
Traditionally, the study of Israeli music has focused on compositions and composers: on specific works, on the composers’ aesthetic views, and on the ways their music reflects a balance between Jewish identity, Israeli identity, Western influences, and Eastern ones. Only a small portion of the scholarship has addressed institutions, performing bodies, and audiences. There is a need to integrate these perspectives, especially given that a significant number of works composed and performed in the country have been lost. A scholar focusing on local string quartets, for instance, must reckon with the loss of Mordechai Sandberg’s early quartet (1922), Marc Lavry’s Quartet Op. 108 (1937), and Wilhelm von Blaese’s Quartet (1948); works like those by Grigory Kompanyeetz (discussed in this article) or Gabriel Jacobsohn (1947) survive only through recordings, without notated manuscripts.[3] This fragmentary historical picture demands that we consider the full range of musical and social aspects of the scene.
Jehoash Hirshberg authored the most comprehensive book to date on musical activity in Mandatory Palestine, devoting significant attention to cellist Thelma Yellin (1895–1959) and her role in promoting chamber music in the region. In many ways, Yellin was a pioneer: she co-founded the Jerusalem Music Society in 1921 and established the Palestine Quartet, thereby helping to institutionalize regular concert life in Jerusalem.[4] This regularity enabled ambitious projects, such as performing all sixteen Beethoven string quartets. The consistent presence of the chamber music canon throughout an entire season served as the backbone of concert life as early as the 1920s. One can observe the reliance on Beethoven as a backbone continuing into later years. In 1937, with the establishment of the Society of Music Lovers in Rehovot, it seems that the long-term plan was to present the complete cycle of quartets over several seasons: from the second season (1938–1939) to the beginning of the seventh season (1943–1944), nine different Beethoven quartets were performed (one of them was repeated).[5] The Polishuk Quartet performed all of Beethoven’s quartets in a concert series in Haifa during the 1941–1942 season and in another series in Tel Aviv during the 1942–1943 season.[6] The composer Robert Starer (1924–2001) described in his memoirs how, as a teenage music student in Jerusalem, he became acquainted with the music literature through public listening concerts of recordings. He specifically mentioned the concerts held every Saturday afternoon at the home of a “kindly elderly doctor,” in each of which three Beethoven quartets were played.[7]
The formation of the “classical” string quartet canon—of which Beethoven is its most iconic representative—continued into the period addressed by this article. Just as the quartets of Brahms and Dvořák were regarded at the time of their publication as modern additions to an already established classical canon, so too did the string quartet repertoire continue to expand during the first half of the twentieth century with new music (after Brahms and Dvořák were already considered canonical). Leading ensembles in Europe—such as the Belgian Pro Arte Quartet, the German Amar Quartet, and the Viennese Kolisch Quartet—made their name not only through performances of the traditional canon but also by championing works by their contemporaries. By the mid-1930s, newly composed quartets by Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Arnold Schoenberg, Béla Bartók, and Sergei Prokofiev had become part of the classical-romantic canon.
Although the string quartet scene in Palestine-Eretz Israel was slow to embrace Schoenberg and Bartók, it was quite open to new music by local composers. The symbiotic relationship between composers and performers in this context is clear: the many quartets active in the country were eager to perform new music written for them, and composers found in chamber music far more performance opportunities than in the symphonic field. As will be shown, the proportion of modern works in the local quartet repertoire was higher than what is common today, and the incentives to present new music alongside the classical canon were varied.
Until the mid-1930s, the repertoire performed in the country blended Eastern European and British elements. The former were championed by the scene's early leaders (pre-Fifth Aliyah), while the latter were encouraged by cultural officials of the British Mandate. For example, a fair amount of English music was performed, particularly from the Baroque period. In the realm of string quartets, few works by early twentieth-century English composers made it into the canon: local ensembles did not adopt the few quartets by Edward Elgar, Frank Bridge, or Ralph Vaughan Williams.[8] Nevertheless, the British element remained present—if only for pragmatic reasons—until the end of the Mandate. In concerts held under the direct auspices of the Mandate authorities or British cultural institutions (such as the British Institute), it was customary to include one British work and one work by a local composer.[9] Even though the quartets benefited from British patronage—such as performing at Beit Levin on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv and in other halls under British administration—they sought to minimize their obligatory repertoire commitments as much as possible. Thus, many quartets preferred to play short Baroque suites by earlier English composers such as Henry Purcell or Henry Eccles, rather than grapple with a full-length modern British string quartet.[10]
Reconstructing the role of the audience and its response to the emerging chamber music scene in Mandatory Palestine is fraught with methodological and other challenges. The prestigious chamber concert series that began at the Tel Aviv Museum (in its original location on Rothschild Boulevard) in the 1936–1937 season is exceptionally well documented, and it is the only one that allows for an in-depth analysis of audience demand and even some speculation about the audience’s socio-economic makeup: how many tickets were sold in each price category, how much revenue was generated by the museum’s cafeteria and cloakroom on concert nights, and which businesses chose to advertise in the printed programs. However, for most concerts, information is available mainly when they were either great successes or notable failures. Professional music criticism—by critics such as David Rosolio (1898–1961) and Menashe Ravina (1899–1968)—as well as short newspaper reports on concerts, offer either direct testimony (the critic’s opinion or the number of attendees) or indirect insights into audience response and taste (such as reports of additional concerts being scheduled due to demand). Some ensembles concluded their concert series with an additional performance for laborers, and in some cases, tickets were sold at popular prices. Cross-referencing these data with the artistic programs of each concert makes it possible, though with appropriate caution, to trace the musical preferences of the Yishuv audience during the Mandate years.
Informal chamber music performances by amateur musicians for small circles of friends were a fundamental part of the musical scene, yet such activity is, by its nature, undocumented in the press and requires a completely different research approach. Ethnographic research such as that conducted by Bohlman on the German-Jewish community in the 1980s echoes (half a century later) the rituals associated with Hausmusik in the homes of Fifth Aliyah “Jekkes.”[11] Personal letters and diaries are important sources, but they are subjective, inconsistently recorded, difficult to locate, and not always preserved. In such cases, it is vital to consult not only the memoirs of active musicians such as Josef Weissgerber,[12] or those of poets, actors, and bohemians, but also those of professionals in other fields.[13]
The archive of the Palestine Broadcasting Service (PBS), only partially preserved, provides valuable information on communications between station administrators, listeners, and critics. One file in the archive covers a brief period (June 1945 to August 1946) of correspondence on this topic and includes a report by pianist and radio broadcaster Aryeh Sachs summarizing his conversations with listeners around the country (in a letter to the station director, dated 15 August 1946). Sachs notes that chamber music enthusiasts were loyal and enthusiastic listeners but also complained about the lack of a permanent string quartet on the station’s roster.[14]
The Fifth Aliyah brought a profound stylistic transformation to the local music scene. Alongside the establishment of new institutions—the Palestine Conservatory (1933), the PBS (Palestine Broadcasting Service), and the Palestine Symphony Orchestra (1936)—the local scene shifted from an Eastern European style to a clearly Central European one. Numerous quartets were formed after the founding of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, contributing to a rich mosaic of musical activity. A large audience emerged, especially among Central European immigrants in the three major cities as well as in more remote areas.[15] Nathan Shaham’s (1925–2018) novel The Rosendorff Quartet depicts the story of a string quartet composed of members of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra. Early in the novel, violinist Kurt Rosendorff recalls his wife Greta’s words before she remained behind in Germany with their daughter: “You can live without me. But without a quartet—you will not be able to live.” This key sentence highlights the central importance of the string quartet among the Jekkes. Unsurprisingly, this centrality was deeply felt beyond the fictional realm.
The complaint of PBS listeners, as reported by Sachs in 1946 (see above), regarding the absence of a permanent string quartet at the station, was not entirely accurate. In fact, the first ensemble recruited by the PBS on its inaugural broadcast day (30 March 1936) was a string quartet (Meir Frankel, Wolfgang Schocken, Aryeh Mirkin, and Daniel Hofmekler). This quartet formed the nucleus around which additional musicians were gradually added until the formation of the full broadcast orchestra.[16] It is possible that by the time of Sachs’s conversations with listeners a decade later, the quartet had been absorbed into the larger studio ensemble and was playing fewer works from the classical string quartet repertoire.
With the immigration of the musicologist Peter Emanuel Gradenwitz (1910–2001) to Palestine in 1936, a structured narrative of the development of the local music scene began to emerge for the first time. The narrative Gradenwitz constructed in his books in the late 1940s largely tells the story of musical life in the Yishuv after 1933.[18] The way composer Erich Walter Sternberg (1891–1974) is woven into this narrative obscures Gradenwitz’s neglect of the earlier scene prior to the Fifth Aliyah: the first work by Sternberg mentioned in Gradenwitz’s book on chamber music is his String Quartet No. 1, composed in Berlin in 1923–24, prior to Sternberg’s immigration.[19] This implies that the first “Israeli” string quartet was “brought” to the country by its composer and that its local premiere on 5 October 1931 marks the beginning of string quartet history in the region. But how does this align with the fact that Thelma Yellin’s ensemble had already been active for nearly a decade, and that quartets by Mordechai Sandberg and Grigori (Zvi) Kompaneyets had already been performed in the 1920s and early 1930s? It must be acknowledged that by the time Gradenwitz began publishing his books, some of the leading figures of the previous elite had already stepped aside—some willingly, others by necessity. Joel Engel, considered a guiding figure of the Russian approach to Jewish art music, died in 1927. Kompaneyets left for the Soviet Union in 1932, and several years later, Mordechai Sandberg and Solomon Rosowsky also emigrated to the United States. David Schor, second only to Engel in influence among the St. Petersburg school émigrés, died in 1942.
One may justly criticize Gradenwitz for overlooking the earlier musical elite, yet he did witness the generational shift, and perhaps felt the need to “recruit” works composed abroad as foundational to the new Israeli repertoire. Sternberg’s Quartet No. 1 indeed raises a fundamental question: what constitutes “Israeli music”? One might consider a work Israeli based on its place of composition, the composer’s place of birth, their main center of activity, or specific stylistic traits. By most such criteria, Quartet No. 1 is not an Israeli work—it is deeply indebted to early Viennese Expressionism, particularly that of Arnold Schoenberg (like Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2 of 1908, Sternberg adds a soprano voice toward the end). The Yiddish poem set to music (“Der Param”) was later replaced by a Hebrew translation in a 1952 revision. But is that enough to make the piece “Israeli” rather than “German”?
For the purposes of this article—focused on musical activity in Mandatory Palestine—I adopt a broader definition of “Israeli music”: music performed in Palestine and written by composers who were active there, even if composed prior to immigration. This inclusive approach would cover not only Sternberg’s quartet and those neglected by Gradenwitz (such as Zandberg and Kompaniyets), but also early quartets by Robert Starer and Herbert Brün (1918–2000), who spent formative years as composition students in Palestine, absorbed the local string quartet culture, and published their works shortly after emigrating to the U.S. Walter Levin (1924–2017), first violinist of the American LaSalle Quartet and dedicatee of Brün’s quartet, also spent the war years in Mandate Tel Aviv, studying with Rudolf Bergmann (1892–1961), concertmaster of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra.
The economic incentive for local string quartets was clear. Chamber ensembles—especially those not requiring a piano—had a wide potential concert market, extending from Beirut and Damascus in the north and east to Alexandria and Cairo in the south and west. Independence from a piano made performances more profitable. In the early seasons of the prestigious concert series at the Tel Aviv Museum, a string quartet player could earn around 3 Palestine Pounds per concert (a junior municipal clerk earned about 12 per month). In contrast, concerts featuring a piano quartet required hiring, transporting, and tuning the instrument—expenses that added some 2.7 Palestine Pounds to the budget, inflating production costs by around 70% and reducing musician fees by about 15%.[20]
The Chamber Music Society of Rehovot exemplifies activity in smaller communities. Founded in late 1937, its concerts attracted top musicians from larger cities and mirrored the Tel Aviv Museum series. In fact, Rehovot (and to a degree, the kibbutzim) preserved the essence of Central European musical culture as a social event rather than a business venture. Minutes from the society’s second-season opening meeting and the fact that concerts were held in a member’s garden reflect the intimacy of the circle that organized and enjoyed these performances. Comparing Rehovot’s 1937–38 season with Tel Aviv’s 1936–37 season is telling: the average audience size was similar, musician fees only slightly lower, and ticket prices in Rehovot (50 mil) were half those in Tel Aviv. For context, a cup of good coffee or a weekend edition of Haaretz also cost about 10 mil; tickets for the Palestine Symphony Orchestra started at 100 mil and went up to 1 pound. The Rehovot society operated without financial gain: the surplus from its five-concert season matched the net profit of a single Tel Aviv Museum concert (which kept 40% of net revenue and distributed the rest to the musicians).[20]
The string quartet—with its mobility, complex repertoire, and the fact that it performs “exposed” in small venues and close to its audience—is considered a fascinating “laboratory” for musical performance, particularly in the realm of verbal and non-verbal communication during rehearsals and concerts. The novel The Rosendorff Quartet depicts not only the psychological intricacies often associated with chamber music (sexual tension, jealousy, ambition), but also the unique complexities of the string quartet scene among members of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra in the mid-1930s: the experience of emigration (if not exile), ideological conflicts, and political and security-related tensions. The fictional Rosendorff Quartet adopted the 19th-century convention of naming the ensemble after the first violinist. In Tel Aviv, for instance, there were the Bergmann Quartet, the Kaminsky Quartet, the Polishuk Quartet, and the Weissgerber Quartet (the latter including two brothers: violinist Andreas Weissgerber and cellist Jacob Weissgerber). In some cases, the entry of a dominant first violinist changed the ensemble’s name—such as in the case of Thelma Yellin’s Jerusalem-based quartet, whose lineup changed so often that it gradually became known as the “Hauser Quartet.” Occasionally, the process went in the opposite direction: the quartet that began performing in mid-1942 was known as the “Bernstein Quartet” by early 1943, and by the end of 1946 had become the “Tel Aviv Quartet.” The abundance of Tel Aviv-based string quartets after 1936 made naming the ensemble after its first violinist a practical solution, not merely a marker of leadership.
In some instances, it was not the first violinist but the violist or cellist who served as the ensemble’s best-known composer or theorist. For example, alongside Emil Hauser’s “takeover” of Thelma Yellin’s quartet, violist-composer Heinrich (Hanoch) Jacoby joined the group. The original violist, Menahem Osnas, was also a prominent theory teacher and author of Foundations of Music Theory, one of the first theory textbooks printed in Palestine.[21] Yitzhak Edel—also a noted pedagogue and composer—performed in quartets, including the premiere of Sternberg’s quartet. Composer Ödön Partos was so dominant in the quartets he played in that they came to be known as the “Partos Quartet.”
As for repertoire, there is a certain irony in the fact that even the “exclusive” narrative shaped by the Fifth Aliyah failed to gain recognition abroad. Though many of these musicians were highly regarded in European chamber music circles before immigrating (Emil Hauser from the Budapest Quartet, Felix Galimir from the Galimir Quartet, and Joachim Stutschewsky from the Kolisch Quartet), and though local composers were well integrated into modernist circles, the works written in Palestine—some of which received international attention at the time—were ultimately excluded from the contemporary string quartet canon. This canon still reflects the Eurocentrism of the early 20th century.[22] Sternberg’s aforementioned quartet, for instance, received formal recognition from the International Music Council of UNESCO and was performed at the ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music) festival in Haifa in 1954, but it is rarely performed today and has never been commercially recorded.
Kompaneyets and the Palestine String Quartet in memory of Joel Engel
The novel The Rosendorff Quartet helped solidify the association between the string quartet and the story of German-Jewish immigrants (Jekkes), yet Nathan Shaham subtly disrupts this narrative by weaving in elements of his own life story. As a member of Kibbutz Beit Alfa and someone deeply immersed in the cultural life of the Jezreel Valley, he knew how to situate the beginnings of the string quartet scene during the founding period of the Jerusalem Music Society—and far removed from the cultural and musical richness of Jerusalem. In a 2006 interview, he recalled that the first inter-kibbutz string quartet had been established as early as 1922 by members of Beit Alfa, Yagur, and Ein Harod, and that he himself played in the second such ensemble.[23]
Quartets were also formed in Tel Aviv before the Fifth Aliyah. The most prominent among them was the Palestine String Quartet in memory of Joel Engel. Although it adopted that name only in August 1930, its origins lay in a student ensemble that had been active at the “Shulamit” Conservatory under the direction of Moshe Hoppenko (1880–1949) three years earlier. In May 1927, a “Beethoven Festivity” (the Hebrew word neshef was then used in place of concert) was held at the conservatory, concluding with a performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 18 No. 4. The players were three of Hoppenko’s violin students (Shlomo Bor and Asher Borochov on violin, Chaim Bor on viola) and the cellist Yehudit Seidenberg, a student of Moshe Veronovetsky.[24] A month and a half later, the same ensemble performed that Beethoven quartet alongside Haydn’s Op. 64 No. 4 as part of the institution’s “First Chamber Music Concert.” Both Veronovetsky and Hoppenko had trained in St. Petersburg, where the Bor brothers were also born, but the brothers had immigrated to Palestine as children. Thus, unlike Thelma Yellin’s Jerusalem Quartet, the Bor brothers’ musical education was acquired locally—making their style a distinctly Palestinian offshoot of the St. Petersburg school.[25]
Although the ensemble was made up of conservatory students, it apparently achieved a high level of performance. Hoppenko seems to have held his young student Shlomo Bor (1909–2004) in particularly high regard; at age 18, Bor was already being invited to perform as a soloist with the conservatory orchestra. In late June 1928—just six weeks before his final recital—Bor played Dvořák’s Violin Concerto. Shortly thereafter, he performed Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, demonstrating that despite his young age, he was already functioning as a fully fledged professional musician. A report in the newspaper Davar on the conservatory’s final examinations remarked: “Once again, a student appeared before the audience who has reached near-perfection in his art. He is almost no longer a student.”[26]
There is a certain symbolism in the fact that the day after Shlomo Bor’s graduation recital marked the beginning of a new era in Tel Aviv’s concert life: Grigory (Zvi ben Yitzhak) Kompaneyets (in Russian: Григорий Исаакович Компанеец; in Ukrainian: Григорій Ісакович Компанієць), a composer and conductor who had formerly served as the musical director of Habima Theatre, conducted the debut concert of the “Concert Ensemble” he had founded. The ensemble consisted of 15 players and was intended, according to the plan, to give weekly performances on a regular basis.[27] During the few years he spent in the country, Kompaneyets was a highly active and enterprising figure in the musical life of the Yishuv. He also conducted an orchestra composed of students from the “Shulamit” Conservatory, and it appears there was some overlap between the two orchestras. The Bor brothers, in particular, seem to have drawn his attention. After the ensemble’s first season, Kompaneyets traveled to Berlin for several months. Upon his return, rather than immediately resuming work with the Concert Ensemble, he formed a string quartet based on the same student quartet from “Shulamit”: Shlomo Bor, Asher Borochov, Chaim Bor, and now the youngest brother, Avraham Bor, who replaced Seidenberg as the cellist.
Kompaneyets’ figure is shrouded in some mystery, largely due to confusion with his nephew, Zinovy Lvovich Kompaneyets (Зиновий Львович Компанеец, 1902–1987). Although some sources conflate the two, it was Grigory—not Zinovy—who immigrated to Palestine in the mid-1920s. In May 1928, a concert featuring his compositions was performed, and in advance of the event, Professor David Schor wrote about him in Haaretz:
Zvi ben Yitzhak Kompaneyets was born on March 8, 1881 in Russia, in the city of Lubny [Lubny], Poltava Oblast [now Ukraine]. From the beginning of his childhood he lived in Rostov-on-Don. There he sang in the choir of Cantor [Eliezer] Grovitz [1844–1913], and graduated from the State School of Piano and Singing. He studied in Milan with the famous Professor Borghi [sic. This is probably the opera singer Augusto Broggi, 1847–1917]. He completed his composition studies with Professors [Nikolai] Sokolov [1859–1922] and [Joseph] Vitols [Витолс, Vītols, 1863–1948] at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He worked as a conductor in the opera and symphony in Russia and abroad, in 1911 in Paris. On his initiative and under his direction, the opera "Samson et Dalila" was presented in St. Petersburg in 1912 for the first time in Hebrew. He actively participated in the St. Petersburg committee of the "Society for Jewish Music". In 1916, under his direction, the first concert of this society was held there, with the participation of an orchestra. In 1925, Mr. Kompaneyets joined the "Habima" company as the musical director and conductor of the orchestra. He began his activity in composition on Hebrew themes in 1924; he composed a quartet and a lullaby for a quartet, - these compositions were performed in Moscow in 1925 - works for choir and songs. A whole series of critical articles in various cities and countries praise Mr. Kompaneyets and testify to his talents. His works are distinguished by their variety of tones, temperament, and talent for opening up themes. Understanding the complex counterpoint in his works requires special attention from the listeners. The concert program at the "Music Society" includes: a quartet, a lullaby quartet, five choral works, and several songs. All of these works were created from 1924 onwards.[28]
As mentioned above, the Palestine String Quartet in memory of Joel Engel was founded by Kompaneyets after his return from Berlin. The quartet performed its first program in the Eretz Israel Theater hall on August 14 and 24, 1930. After resuming work with the concert ensemble, Kompaneyets invited the quartet to be a guest at the Concert Esemble's fiftieth programme gala concert, and the quartet, written by him, was also performed there.[29]
Although it is impossible to say for sure whether the commemoration of Joel Engel (1868–1927) was based on actual support from any of his admirers or was merely a symbolic act, there is no doubt that Engel was a significant and inspiring figure for everyone involved in Jewish music in those years. He founded the Jewish Folk Music Society, was considered a prominent composer of the "St. Petersburg School" and founded the "Juwal" publishing house in Berlin, which specialized in Jewish music.[30] Most of his works were vocal, but his vocal works (primarily, the music for the play "The Dybbuk") were also considered canonical and shaped the conventions of Jewish artistic style in the first half of the twentieth century. Engel spent the last three years of his life in Tel Aviv, teaching at the "Shulamit" Conservatory, among other places. The Bor brothers undoubtedly knew him (Engel taught Shlomo Bor theory, and he is signed, among other things, on his first-year certificate at the Shulamit Conservatory, academic year 1903). Whether or not there was an extra-musical motive behind naming the quartet, the commemoration of Joel Engel guided the quartet's activities - its repertoire revolved entirely around the key figures of the "St. Petersburg School". The premiere program opened with Engel's Adagio Misterioso (Chabad), Op. 22, and continued (with the participation of a clarinet) with the first suite of "Hebrew Sketches" (Esquisses hébraïques), Op. 12, by Alexander Krein (this work, from 1909, was also dedicated to Engel). Then an aria for violin and piano (Op. 41) by Krein and a Hebrew dance by Yosef Achron were performed, and the program concluded with Kompaneyets' string quartet. This is how the piece was described in the program:
Zvi Kompaneyets: Hebrew Quartet (1925) No. 1 (for the first time) / by the Palestine String Quartet in memory of J. Engel / A. (Stories of the Rebbe) Moderato molto, Andante molto sostenuto, Allegro, Andante molto sostenuto / B. (Lullaby) Moderato / C. (The Wedding) Pocco mistoso [sic], Moderto molto, Allegro non tropo/ Presto.
The phrase "for the first time" seems to indicate a premiere performance, even though the work had already existed for five years. The second concert of the program featured the baritone Yehuda Har-Melach. Accompanied by pianist Eliyahu Rudiakov, he sang songs by Engel and Gorchov, as well as the song "Bein Heshmashot" to the tune of Z. Kompaneyets (without mentioning the author of the text - there are several songs of this name, both in Yiddish and Hebrew), and this song also appears "for the first time".
This time the quartet was described in a slightly different and more concise way:
Zvi Kompaneyets: Hebrew Quartet (1925) No. 1 (from the manuscript) / by the J. Engel Hebrew Quartet (sic) / a) Stories of the Rebbe / b) Lullaby / c) Wedding
It is difficult to say why the notation "for the first time" was replaced by the remark "from the manuscript". As we saw in the biographical paragraph by David Schor above, a string quartet by the composer was already played in a concert of Kompaneyets' works in 1928. Was the one performed in 1928 actually a different quartet (perhaps Quartet No. 2)? Or did someone remember that the work had already been performed and therefore the wording was different? Or was the mistake intentional? The Haaretz critic M. A. wrote about a month after the concert that "it is true that things were heard that had already been played several times before, but this time a special melody was added to them" - a vague wording that may contain a certain sting.[32]
Even more significant is the fact that Schor explicitly states that the quartet and the lullaby had already been performed in Russia In 1925. Indeed, at a concert held in Moscow on November 15, 1925, on behalf of the Moscow branch of the Society of Jewish Music (Общество еврейской музыки), the Moscow Conservatory Quartet played Kompaneyets' "Lullaby" (Колыбельиая) followed by Quartet No. 1. It is noted on both works that this is the first time they are performed from the manuscript (1-й раз по рукописи). The similarities between the program of this concert and the program of the concert held five years later in Tel Aviv are noteworthy: alongside Kompanyets' quartet, the two "Hebrew Sketches" suites by Krein and a group of works for violin and piano that included the "Niggun" from Bloch's "Baal Shem" suite, Krain's "Hebrew Caprice" (Op. 24) and Aharon's "Hebrew Dance" were played there, among others. Two details contradict what is written in the program of the Palestine String Quartet in memory of Joel Engel: the year of composition of the quartet by Kompaneyets – the Russian program shows the year of composition as 1924 – and the list of movements, according to which the work consisted of two movements, not three:
a) Molto moderato. Andante molto sostenuto. / b) Poco maestoso. Recitativo. Molto moderato. Allegro con brio.
Even if the work was written before Kompaneyets immigrated to Israel, it meets the broad definition of "Israeli music" proposed above: it was written by a composer who shifted, if only for a few years, the weight of his musical activity to Palestine, and it was performed on his initiative before a local audience. Even in terms of the style of performance, one can see a local aspect in these performances by the quartet: The Palestine String Quartet in memory of Joel Engel was composed of students of Moshe Hoppenko at the Shulamit Conservatory in Tel Aviv, in contrast to the quartets that arose around the founding of the Philharmonic and brought to Palestine the Central European style of playing of Budapest, Vienna, or Berlin. Furthermore, this is the first Israeli string quartet that can be reproduced from a recording – from the Kol Israel record collection – preserved in the National Sound Archive. The work was recorded by the Grünschlag-Bor Quartet on September 11, 1956,[33] and the record label identifies the composer as Kompanyets (without his first name). None of the relevant archives in the collection of personal archives of the Soviet Union (Личные архивные фонды в государственных хранилищах СССР), neither that of Grigori (file f. 313) nor that of Zinovi (file f. 236), contains the quartet's scores, nor Especially the notes of the version that appears in the recording. The notes of the early version, in two movements, are in the Simeon Bellison collection at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance (item D2-64/MS50 + MS50a) and confirm that the recorded quartet is indeed the work of Grigori. Furthermore, the recorded quartet matches the description that appears in the software, and especially the description of the reviewer M. A.:
This quartet is distinguished by its gentleness in its first two parts: “The Tales of the Rebbe” and “The Lullaby.” In the third part – “The Wedding” – the composer described to us a real Jewish wedding. The Jewish folk songs are sung while dancing are pleasant to the ear.[34]
The assumption that the work on the recording is indeed the work of Grigory Kompaneyets is reinforced by the identity of the musicians: the Grünschlag-Bor Quartet included the three brothers of the Bor family, along with violinist David Grünschlag (1914–1996), who married Sarah Bor (1914–2007) – the younger sister of Chaim, Shlomo and Avraham. In other words, the recording is performed by three of the four musicians who played the Kompaneyets Quartet in 1930, under the musical direction of the composer.
The work itself is indeed faithful to the guidelines of the St. Petersburg School: several of its themes are recognizable as melodies of Chabad hassidic court. The first movement (The Rebbe's Tales) is based on the tune "Avinu Malkenu" to the tune of The Old Admo"r (the tune is attributed to Schneier Zalman of Ladi, the first Chabad Rebbe). Joel Engel also arranged this tune, and it was published posthumously in 1930, in a collection of ten Jewish songs arranged for piano.[35] The source on which Kompaneyets based himself is not Joel Engel's arrangement. The order of appearance of the three melodies that make up the tune in Engel's is different from that in Kompaneyets'. Kompaneyets' version is closer to the one that Chabad Hassidim sing to this day. Although Engel's also has the title "Dem alt'n Reb'ns Lied" ("The Old Rabbi's Song"), he was apparently based on a version that received secular lyrics from the folklorist Pesach Marek, and they appear as the subtitle: "Wos teig mir main Leb'n" - "What is my life worth?"
The second movement, which was not included in the first version of the quartet (the one found in the manuscript in the Belison collection), is based on the song "Unzer Rebinyu." The general atmosphere, the character of the melody and harmony, as well as the techniques Kompaneyets requests from the performers (tremolo, pianissimo), strongly resemble "Mipnei Ma?" (For what reason?), the opening movement of Engel's The Dybbuk suite. As the musical director and conductor of Habima, there is no doubt that Kompaneyets was familiar with Engel's score in detail when he wrote the quartet in 1924, and by the time of the 1930 performance, the music was already familiar to the Israeli audience.
An impressive violin cadenza link the second and third movements together. The third movement contains a "d'vekut niggun" (a Chabad ecstatic melody), but particularly interesting is the similarity between the third movement and the final movement of Hebrew Sketches, Op. 12, by Krein. Since Kompaneyets was the artistic director of the Palestine String Quartet in memory of Joel Engel, he knew well that his quartet would be performed in the same concert as Krein's work (as mentioned, both pieces were performed together in Moscow). It is hard to say whether he expected the audience to notice the strong connection between the two pieces or whether, if he drew inspiration from Krein, he perhaps hoped that the connection would escape the audience’s notice.
As we saw above, there is a discrepancy in the number and description of the movements between the Moscow version (1925) of Kompaneyets' quartet and the version performed in Tel Aviv (1930). It is possible that the "Lullaby" performed in Moscow (composed in 1925) began as a separate piece and later became the opening section of the second movement of the quartet. If this was indeed the case, it would explain why the date of composition of the final movement, as stated in the program in Tel Aviv, became the date of completion of the entire work. In such a case, its "Israeli" identity is emphasized, as it suggests that its final form, including the arrangement of the movements and their linking, was crafted during the composer's time in Palestine. It might also be less surprising that the second movement, which was composed in 1925 as an independent work, is based not on a Chabad melody but on a folk song, in contrast to the two other movements of the quartet composed in 1924.
Another significant difference between the Moscow version and the Tel Aviv version of the work is the fact that the movement titles in Moscow are based solely on tempo and character descriptions, without any reference to extramusical (programmatic) ideas such as "The Tales of the Rabbi" or "The Wedding." In the first concert in Tel Aviv, extramusical descriptions were added, and in the second concert, the extramusical descriptions remained, while the tempo and character descriptions were entirely omitted. Could this be another hint at the "union" of the two-part quartet with the lullaby? The lullaby itself is defined by an extramusical idea, and it is possible that Kompaneyets wanted to add such descriptions to the other two movements of the quartet. Does the addition of the extramusical titles suggest that Kompaneyets feared that the Tel Aviv audience would not recognize the Chabad melody associated with "the Rabbi" (Yid. Alter Rebbe) in the first movement or the melody associated with the wedding in the third movement? Could the audience that attended the Moscow concert have been familiar with the quoted melodies and understood, even without explicit program notes, the implied extramusical context?
After Kompaneyets' return to Russia, the quartet continued to operate. At a certain point, the violinist Israel Tseliuk, also a former student of Hoffenko, replaced Asher Borokhov. Later, Tseliuk became a lawyer and musical entrepreneur. In fact, the quartet continued to focus on "Jewish" materials in the spirit of the St. Petersburg school, even if they were combined with standard canonical materials, such as Beethoven's Quartet Op. 18 No. 4, which the quartet members had already played as youths. The quartet did not operate continuously, partly due to Shlomo Bor's trip to study at the Conservatory in Prague, but upon his return in the mid-1930s, the quartet resumed its work.
Evidence of the appreciation for the quartet, and perhaps even for its unique expertise in Jewish music, can be seen in its live broadcast on "Palestine Broadcasting Service Studio" on May 11, 1936, about a month and a half after the station's broadcasts began. During this broadcast, the quartet performed with clarinetist Zvi Tzipin and pianist Arieh Sachs. But why did the station, which employed a permanent string quartet since it began broadcasting, invite a guest quartet at this point?
It seems that the quartet's specialization in the St. Petersburg school repertoire played a role here, and the invitation was not a spontaneous decision but was planned even before the broadcasts began. Already on March 12 (two weeks before the broadcasts started), Karel Salomon, the head of the music department, sent a letter to Shlomo Bor, informing him that he would be in Tel Aviv the following week and asking him to contact him and arrange a meeting (audition). It seems that this meeting indeed took place, as a month later, Salomon sent another letter to Bor to check if the scheduled broadcast date and its content were acceptable to the musicians. The works in question were a suite by Engel and an overture by Prokofiev (the Overture on Jewish themes, Op. 34, from 1919). On the radio program schedule for that day, one side lists Engel's Hassidic Suite for clarinet and strings, but Prokofiev's work does not appear. On the other side, it is noted that Sachs is performing with the quartet. Despite the fact that the broadcast was allocated only 35 minutes, it was also reported in the Jewish press in Germany.[36]
As mentioned, the year 1936 was, in many ways, a turning point in the development of musical life in the country. The establishment of the Philharmonic Orchestra dramatically changed the human composition of all those active in cultural life in the country, especially in Tel Aviv. The Eretz Yisrael Symphony Orchestra brought together leading orchestral musicians from Europe. The three Bor brothers were among the few "locals" invited to join the orchestra and were undoubtedly seen as experts in artistic Jewish music. Despite this, they were pushed to the second row by the prominent names leading the string section of the orchestra: Weissgerber, Bergmann, Kaminski, and Grünschlag.
There is no doubt that the Palestine String Quartet in memory of Joel Engel reflects, simultaneously, both the hunger felt (especially among critics and intellectuals) for true chamber music activity and the limited ability of the audience to support such an activity. Both sides of the coin are clearly evident from the journalistic report on the premiere concert. M. A., in the review quoted above, wrote that "until now, chamber concerts were not available to the general public. This is a welcome innovation and worthy of the attention of the Hebrew audience, thirsty for melodies, attention which will make this quartet a regular fixture here."[37] It is possible that in the phrase "until now, chamber concerts were not available to the general public," M. A. was hinting at the existence of a "below the radar" amateur chamber music scene in Tel Aviv. In contrast, Dar Hayom noted that "it is regrettable that the audience did not attend this concert."[38] The Fifth Aliyah indeed confirmed the need for chamber music activity. The report from Yariv Ezrachi, an active and central figure in Tel Aviv's musical life, a student of Hoppenko at the "Shulamit" Conservatory (and his brother-in-law), shows how the old musical elite was dazzled by the new elite.
Every cultured country has, in addition to symphonic orchestras, distinguished string quartets that perform their rich repertoire in their homeland. [...] The only permanent quartet exists in Jerusalem, and in Tel Aviv, no such viable ensemble has yet been formed. A suitable arrangement of forces and consistency in work are required. And now, a new quartet has been formed from the musicians of the Eretz Yisrael Orchestra: violinists [Rudolf] Bergmann and David Grünschlag, Mrs. [Renée] Galimir – viola, and cellist Theo Salzmann, who recently immigrated from Vienna. The four of them united and, after concentrated work for a month, performed for the first time in a concert. In a short period, it is impossible to achieve great heights, but the artistic values this quartet has acquired so far inspire admiration and trust. This distinguished quartet will be able to play an important role in the field of chamber music here.[39]
David Grünschlag, the second violinist in the new quartet, was also the youngest member of the group (not yet 25 when it was formed, while Bergman was already 46). He became friends with Shlomo Bor, and eventually married his sister. Musically, this union produced the Grinschlag-Bor Quartet, which recorded Kompaneyets’ quartet in 1956. Although the Bor brothers had participated in 1950 in the recording of the suite (from the legacy) by Engel (perhaps this, rather than the suite from The Dybbuk, was the "Hasidic Suite" broadcast on the radio in 1936), together with Grinschlag, the quartet recorded the two more complex works they performed in their debut concert – Kompaneyets’ quartet and Krein's Hebrew Sketches, Op. 12 (with clarinetist Yonah Attinger). It is interesting to note that even in the 1950s, the Bor brothers and their young brother-in-law continued to record the same repertoire that had occupied them two decades earlier, as young musicians under Kompaneyets' musical direction. Grinschlag's musical background was very different from that of the Bor brothers. Like Zeltsman and Glimir, he came from Vienna and brought with him a very different tradition from the one that was customary at the "Shulamit" Conservatory. Grinschlag took the role of first violin in the joint quartet, while Shlomo moved to the second violin chair. Although it was clear he was one of the best violinists in the country, Grinschlag seemed open to adopting the St. Petersburg repertoire line, which had been looked down upon or ignored by some of his colleagues from Central Europe. In another recording from the St. Petersburg repertoire (Improvisations for String Quartet, Op. 63, by Yosef Achron), Grinschlag leads a quartet with Shlomo Bor, Marek Rak, and Yehoyakim Stutschewsky. This ensemble was typically associated with the violinist Yosef Kaminski.
Conclusions
At the beginning of the article, I raised the hypothesis that the neglect of string quartets (ensembles that performed and compositions that were written) during the period of the Yishuv stemmed from the state of preservation of the sources. The neglect was also a result of the departure of some of the key figures. The focus of this article is on Kompaneyets’ string quartet, primarily in its performance by the Palestine String Quartet in memory of Joel Engel. The story of this forgotten piece exemplifies the two main issues: the quartet is the work of a composer who left Palestine in the early 1930s; its St. Petersburg style sharply contrasted with the new musical style that dominated the country from the mid-1930s; it survived on a record without the composer’s first name being mentioned; the final version of the score was lost; and the details about it mostly survived in private collections. A wave of Central European musicians flooded Tel Aviv with the Fifth Aliyah, and the first violinist who joined the 1956 recording, undoubtedly a "star"-quality musician, left a few years later. These factors contributed to the decline in the stature of the quartet that performed the work in the early 1930s.
Nevertheless, it seems that even the historiographical difficulties cannot obscure the importance of the work and the significance of the social and musical context in which it was performed. The performances of Kompaneyets' String Quartet No. 1 provide us with a snapshot of musical life before the Fifth Aliyah: Yoel Engel’s influence was felt at every turn, and the impact of the St. Petersburg school was evident in musical educational institutions such as the "Shulamit" Conservatory. In the corridors of "Shulamit," the most ambitious projects of the period emerged – Kompaneyets’ concert ensemble and the Israeli string quartet named after Yoel Engel. The Palestine String Quartet in memory of Joel Engel, and later the Grünschlag-Bor Quartet, was an ensemble whose few recordings from the 1950s serve as a window into early musical life in Palestine, and in certain ways they also act as a link to the St. Petersburg school. It is remarkable that the Grünschlag-Bor Quartet, even though its "Viennese" first violinist arrived in the country about five years after Kompaneyets returned to Russia, recorded in the 1950s the two central works that had already been connected in a 1925 concert of the Jewish Music Society. For scholars and performers, these recordings contain valuable information about the performance practices of the St. Petersburg school. For example, violinists and clarinetists today, whose musical world includes modern klezmer playing styles, may be surprised by the absence of "klezmer mannerisms" from these recordings, such as vibrato and the tempo fluctuations and changes in rhythm that the Grünschlag-Bor Quartet and other quartets of the period used.
In the background of writing this article, I transcribed the surviving recording from the National Sound Archive and edited the score of the piece. In December 2021, the work was performed, likely for the first time in 65 years, by the "Carmel" Quartet as part of the 24th Israeli Music Festival. This action exposes the research product to the general public, either to excite, entertain, or amuse them, and most importantly, it illustrates the unique aspect of musicological research in comparison to related historical disciplines. Perhaps it is the revival of the work and its return to the concert hall that will help identify the melodies Kompaneyets wove into his composition. The renewed focus on the composer also led to the discovery of early versions of the score in the Belison collection, the definitive identification of the recorded quartet as the work of Grigory Kompaneyets (and not his nephew Zinovy), and reinforced the hypothesis that the second movement of the recorded quartet evolved as an independent piece, possibly even a "lullaby" from the Moscow concert. Perhaps with its return to the audience, Kompaneyets' quartet will challenge the conventional classifications in local concert halls – after all, this piece touches the spiritual world of Chabad Hasidim as much as it touches the lives of the secular Western audience. In the realm of string quartets, Kompaneyets' composition serves as a monument to musical life in Palestine before the Fifth Aliyah and to the unique nature of musical life during that time. Thus, it may even offer a new narrative connecting musicians from the former Soviet Union who arrived in Israel in the 1990s directly to the roots of musical activity in the country. Above all, Kompaneyets' quartet, which had disappeared from scholarly view for decades, proves that our chronological proximity to the event does not guarantee the availability of all relevant sources or our awareness of them. The need to cross-reference broadcast lists with recordings, to transcribe lost scores, and to untangle intertwined biographies is usually associated with musicological research from much earlier periods. Recognizing that music in Palestine during the British Mandate period is akin to groping through the dense history of ancient music may encourage a renewed examination of the musical scene of this period. The cultural crossroads of the 1930s and 1940s were not in Europe. At that time, Europe was burdened with the hardships of war. The places where European culture was dispersed – Britain and the United States – absorbed a vast body of artists and scholars. Alongside them, Palestine was also a fascinating and bustling cultural crossroads: the golden age of chamber music, as outlined earlier, flourished in a conflict-ridden land under British rule, whose musical life was led by musicians, critics, and audiences with Eastern European orientations, and was flooded by a sudden influx of immigrants holding the bourgeois values of Central Europe. The forgotten string quartets of the period open a window into this cultural richness, into the public musical activity and the private chamber music, and into the stories of composers and performers who are not at the heart of the accepted narrative.
Footnotes:
I would like to thank Yoel Greenberg and the Carmel Quartet, Oded Zehavi, Eran Shalev, Dorit Gruenshlag Straus, Amir Bor, Nava Paley-Kivowitz, Ilana Sivan, Ron Kozer, Yaakov Braker, Michael Lukin, Yosef Goldenberg, Matan Vigoda, Dov Liberman, Hagit Krik, Shelly Zer-Zion, Shimi Shefer, David Schiller, and Jascha Nemtsov. I am also grateful to Gianni Fidenza (Conservatorio di Milano), Hindishe Lee (Yeshiva University), Hadas Avivi (Rehovot History Archive), Maya Gan-Tzvi (Tel Aviv Museum Archive), and the anonymous reviewers for this journal.
In Hebrew musical discourse, the terms revi‘yat klei keshet (literally: “bowed-instrument quartet,” corresponding to the Italian quartetto d’archi and German Streichquartett) and revi‘yat meytarim (“string quartet,” corresponding to the French quatuor à cordes and English string quartet) are used interchangeably to refer both to the ensemble and to the repertoire composed for it. In this article, I will use the term revi‘yat klei keshet, which more precisely denotes the instruments involved. Mandolin quartets and guitar quartets, common in contemporary music, are also string quartets but are not quartets of bowed instruments.
Christina Bashford, “The string quartet and society,” in Robin Stowell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet (Cambridge, 2003), 3–18; Tully Potter, “From chamber to concert hall,” in Stowell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet, 41–59.
The composition dates of the works mentioned here are approximate and based on indirect references to the works in the press (Sandberg, Blaese) or in concert programs (Lavry).
Jehoash Hirshberg, Music in the Jewish Community of Palestine, 1880–1948: A Social History (Oxford and New York, 1995), 101–106.
Music Lovers’ Society of Rehovot, Program listings for seasons 1 through 23. Rehovot History Archive, file 12,560. Courtesy of the Rehovot History Archive.
Haaretz, 29.9.42.
Robert Starer, Continuo: A Life in Music (New York, 1987), 30.
A string quartet by Norman Porteus, a British engineer active in Palestine on behalf of the Mandate government, was also performed in the country. However, the score has not survived in any local archive and has not, as yet, been located in Britain either.
On the role of organizations such as the British Council as agents of cultural diplomacy, see Stewart Duncan, “‘An Excellent Piece of Propaganda’: The British Council’s Use of Choirs as Cultural Diplomacy in the 1930s,” The Musical Quarterly 105:1–2 (2022), 105–150.
Alon Schab, “Purcell Performances in Palestine under the British Mandate,” Early Music 47:4 (November 2019), 533–550.
Bohlman, The Land Where Two Streams Flow, 211–226.
I am grateful to Ron Kuzar for allowing me to consult the notes of his father, Josef Weisgerber.
Thus, for example, the childhood memoirs of the poet Esther Raab offer (albeit incidentally) a glimpse into musical life in early twentieth-century Petah Tikva, while the early recollections of rocket engineer Moshe (Moya) Epstein from the 1940s provide a firsthand perspective on the amateur music scene in Haifa. Esther Raab, All the Prose: With Translations of Poets and Children’s Songs, ed. Ehud Ben-Ezer (Hod HaSharon, 2001); Amos Levav, Moya – A Life Story / Moshe Epstein (Mazkeret Batya, 2014).
Israel State Archives, file M–1879/14.
Bohlman, The Land Where Two Streams Flow, 139–164.
Undated payroll list (on the verso of a list of items for broadcast from January 1948) naming musicians employed by the Music Department. The list was handwritten, with pencil annotations noting the start date of each musician’s employment. It was inadvertently inserted, for unclear reasons, into a file containing printed excerpts of broadcast scripts for the department’s magazine (1945–1947). Israel State Archives, file M–1879/1.
Peter Emanuel Gradenwitz, Music in Israel (Jerusalem, 1945); The World of the Symphony (Tel Aviv, 1945); Chamber Music (Tel Aviv, 1948).
Gradenwitz, Chamber Music, 434–435.
Tel Aviv Museum Archive, Storage A, Music, Box No. 35.
Music Lovers’ Society of Rehovot, Program listings for seasons 1 through 23. Rehovot History Archive, file 12,560.
Menahem Osnas, Foundations of Music Theory (Jerusalem, 1930).
See, for example, Kenneth Gloag’s survey of twentieth-century quartet repertoire: Kenneth Gloag, “The String Quartet in the Twentieth Century,” in Robin Stowell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet (Cambridge, 2003), 288–309.
Ora Armoni, “‘A Writer Is Someone Who Knows How to Delete’ – Interview with the Author Nathan Shaham of Kibbutz Beit Alfa,” Kibbutzim Website: Portal of the Kibbutz Movement (link), 18.5.2006.
The problem of identifying the cello teacher at the “Shulamit” conservatory exemplifies the surprising difficulty of tracing even basic details from the Mandate period. Concert programs and newspaper announcements offer numerous spellings of his foreign surname (Vernovetzky, Veronovetzky, Bronovsky, Yornovetzky), and variations in his Hebrew name (Ben Asaf, Ben Yosef) and given name (Moshe, Mordechai). With few exceptions, his compositions have been lost.
A deeper discussion of this style of performance and musical interpretation requires close analysis of historical recordings, but such recordings are exceedingly rare. As explained below, this is one reason why the Greenshlag-Bor Quartet recording is of particular importance.
Davar, 12.9.1928.
Hirshberg, Music in the Jewish Community of Palestine, 98–101.
Haaretz, 30.5.1928.
Davar, 21.10.1931.
Jascha Nemtsov, Eliott Kahn & Verena Bopp, “The History of the Jewish Music Publishing Houses Jibneh and Juwal,” Musica Judaica 18 (5766/2005–2006), 1–42.
Haaretz, 12.9.1930. The quotation has been emended.
The violinists in the first concert season of the Palestine Orchestra were prominent students of the Central European schools. Bronisław Huberman, the orchestra’s founder, was himself a stylistic unifier, having invited young players who had studied in his masterclasses—Heftel, Grünschlag, and Alfred Lunger—to join the first violin section of the new orchestra he established in Palestine.
Haaretz, 12.9.1930.
Ю. Энгель / J. Engel, Еврейские народные песни / Jüdische Volkslieder (Mockba/Moscow: Музыкальный Сектор Государственного Издательства / Musiksektion des Staatsverlages, 1930).
Davar, 11.5.1936; Jüdische Rundschau, 12.6.1936.
Haaretz, 12.9.1930.
Doar Hayom, 17.8.1930.
HaBoker, 30.11.1938.