Iacobus Leodiensis [Iacobus de Montibus, Iacobus de Oudenaerde]

III. Arab music

Before the creation of the state of Israel (1948), the region was mainly inhabited by Arabs, and various genres of Arab music played an important role in religious and secular ceremonies and everyday life. At the end of Ottoman rule (1517–1917), Muslim and Christian Arabs formed over 90% of the population. The vast majority of these Arabs were Sunni Muslim. From 1948 onwards Jewish interests became dominant.

1. Folk music.

The most authentic and pervasive kind of Arab music in Israel has been the rich folk music practised by Bedouins, farmers and (to a certain extent) town-dwellers. A characteristic repertory of songs and dances separately involving women and men enhance the various events of life in Bedouin encampments as well as in small or large agrarian villages inhabited by Muslims, Druzes, Christians or mixed populations. The literary, performative and musical components of the sequence of traditional and improvised songs marking any given event all depend on talented individuals who are able to combine the gifts of poet, musician and performer. Normally not all villages are fortunate enough to have a poet-musician within their midst, so they have to bring the best known of them from afar. A normal performance requires the participation of two poets who alternate in singing the verses of certain genres. These are mainly improvised, like the popular Middle Eastern four-line stanzas, the ‘ataba, or the argumentative dialogue in sung verses, the huwar. On special festive occasions, four poet-musicians participate.

Most ceremonies are held outdoors and an active audience takes part by uttering responses, hand-clapping and dancing the debka (chain dance). This is accompanied by a flute, urghul or mujwiz (two types of a double clarinet), the main instruments used in the villages.

2. Urban music.

From scattered information provided mainly by European travellers, we know that under Ottoman rule Arab art music was occasionally performed in coffee houses and at weddings in urban centres. In style it was essentially similar to that of Turkish, Lebanese, Syrian and Egyptian music of the period: singer, supported by instrumentalists of the takht ensemble (see Arab music, §I, 6).

From 1920, when Palestine was under British Mandate, Christian churches in Jerusalem, Ramalla and Nazareth stimulated and sponsored musical activities through educational work and events outside the regular church services. The repertory consisted of a mixture of Arab and Western music.

In the city of Haifa, Ibrahim Bathish founded a music club which played an important role in the development of local art music. One of its graduates, Selim Hilou, became a prominent Lebanese composer and singer of the prestigious muwashshah vocal genre. Among his other writings he has devoted an important book to this subject. After the creation of the state of Israel, three Haifa club graduates became central promoters of Arab musical activity in the northern part of the country: Sudki Shukri, Michael Dermalkonian (who also studied Western music) and Hikmat Shaheen. Through music education a number of performing groups gradually emerged, sponsored largely by the establishment.

The traditional transmission of Arab art music is through assimilation, listening to the fundamental aspects of the art as performed by great masters, or through private lessons given by renowned musicians to interested individuals. Alongside this, an official and formal method of teaching came into being with the establishment in 1951 of a programme for training Arab music teachers at the Haifa Conservatory. In 1963 Suheil Radwan, one of the first trainees, became head of the department of Arab music at Haifa.

The Haifa Arab music department fostered a musical renaissance in schools, clubs and cultural and community centres throughout the country, including the establishment of orchestral ensembles and choirs. Most ensembles included Jewish musicians who had migrated to Israel from Iraq, Egypt and Syria. Muslims, Christians and Jewish musicians worked side by side in a musical community which created a bridge of fraternity between Arabs and Jews. The foundation in 1965 of an Arab-Jewish centre, Beit ha-Gefen, in Haifa, was crucial in this process, and musical activities took place there.

In 1957 the Radio Broadcasting Authority founded the first professional orchestral ensemble. Its first director was Ezra Aharon, a famous composer and ‘ūd player originally from Iraq. In the 1932 Cairo International Congress of Arabic Music, he had led the official Iraqi ensemble under the name ‘Azzuri Efendi. Gifted Jewish instrumentalists from Iraq, Egypt and Syria formed the radio ensemble, later joined by two Arab violinists. Arab singers were employed to sing on radio programmes, and by the 1970s Arab singers and composers were participating in annual festivals held by the radio stations of major cities. Folk, art and popular music programmes were regularly shown on the Arab section of Israeli television.

Most recently some small Arab-Jewish groups have been established containing fine bi-musical instrumentalists conversant with Arab, Jewish and Western art music styles. Their repertories include interesting arrangements of traditional Arab and Israeli music. The most famous of these ensembles is the Bustan ensemble, using qānūn, guitar, banjo, ‘ūd, violin, flute, bass and Arab percussion. The group combines an eclectic mixture of musical influences and has gained an international reputation.

See also Palestinian music and Arab music, §II.

Israel Festival.

An annual festival of music, dance and theatre, founded in 1961 by Aharon Z. Propes, director of the Ministry of Tourism, with the intent of making the young state, already renowned for its high musical standards, into an international artistic centre catering to local audiences and attracting summer tourists. The first festival hosted Pablo Casals, the Budapest Quartet and Rudolf Serkin, thus establishing the predilection for Western classical music. In 1962 the festival commissioned Stravinsky's Abraham and Isaac, introduced by the Israel PO under Robert Craft, with Stravinsky himself attending and conducting his Symphony of Psalms. At that time festivals were held in July and August, with performances all over the country, including in the Roman theatre at Caesaria, refurbished for outdoor spectacles such as Samson et Dalila. Israeli premières included that of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron. In 1982 the Ministry of Tourism handed the organization of the festival to a publicly controlled society, Hagigat Israel (Israel Festival), which has frequently cooperated with private entepreneurs. Since then the festival has been situated in Jerusalem and held over a period of three weeks in May–June, with some events repeated in other locations. Most performances are given in the four-auditorium complex of the Jerusalem Theatre; other venues include the Ein Karem Music Centre, Dormition Abbey and the Scottish Church (St Andrew's), and there are also firework displays over the walls of the old city and other free outdoor events. The festival has had no clear artistic policy. Nearly every year a large-scale opera production, such as the Arena di Verona's Aida, is imported as an outdoor spectacle. The festival has regularly responded to salient changes in taste, demonstrated in its sponsorship of performances of Japanese and Indian music (1991), Moroccan trance-art (1994) and concerts given by the Consort of Musicke and Academy of Ancient Music (also 1994). Jazz features on programmes as well. While most events involve international artists, leading Israeli ensembles and soloists regularly take part.

JEHOASH HIRSHBERG