Iacobus Leodiensis [Iacobus de Montibus, Iacobus de Oudenaerde]

Israeli Music Publications.

Israeli firm of music publishers. It was founded in Tel-Aviv in 1949 by Peter Gradenwitz in association with the Israeli Association of Composers. From 1952 Gradenwitz managed the firm independently as a limited company. It was the first Israeli music publishing house of an international standard, and publishes works by Israeli composers of all schools and styles, as well as works by composers of any nationality that are based on biblical subjects or texts or that have a particular association with Israel or the Near East. The firm has published works written specially for Israel by Schoenberg, Milhaud, Villa-Lobos, Martinů, Martinon, Staempfli, Hovhaness, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Rathaus and many others. The series Early Hebrew Art Music comprises practical scholarly editions of synagogue music from the 12th to the 19th centuries; other first publications include an Allegro barbaro for piano by Alkan, Beatus vir for soprano and alto soloists, chorus and orchestra by Galuppi, the completion of Schubert’s fragmentary setting of Psalm xiii d663, and music by Joseph Achron. By 1982, when the firm was taken over by a British company and transferred to Jerusalem, the catalogue contained about 600 titles in printed editions and an orchestral lending library. Books published by the firm include biographies of composers under its aegis and theoretical works. It has outlets in most countries in Europe and elsewhere, and played a vital role in establishing the Israeli Music Publishers’ Union, a member of the International Union of Publishers. Under the imprint of Illan Melody Press, the firm issued light music from 1949 to 1982.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG1 (P. Gradenwitz)

P. Gradenwitz: Music and Musicians in Israel (Jerusalem, 1959, 3/1978)

PETER GRADENWITZ

Israel Piano Trio.

Israeli ensemble. It was founded in 1972 by the pianist Alexander Volkov, the violinist Menahem Breuer and the cellist Zvi Harell, who was later replaced by Marcel Bergman. Breuer is the leader of the Israel PO and Bergman is its principal cellist; they and Volkov are also active as soloists. The trio's recordings of the complete piano trios of Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Schumann have been highly praised. The group's repertory also embraces 20th-century works, some by Israeli composers including Oedoen Partos, Yardena Alotin, Yehezkiel Braun and Ebel Erlich, who dedicated his Piano Trio to the ensemble. The trio performs regularly in international festivals, including Edinburgh and Schleswig-Holstein, and has given many recitals for the BBC. Its members give masterclasses at the RAM, London, the Musikhochschule in Munich and elsewhere.

MICHAL BEN-ZUR

Israel Quartet.

Israeli string quartet. It was founded in 1957 as the New Israel Quartet, to distinguish it from an earllier group known as the Israel Quartet. Its original members were Alexander Tal, Mordecai Yuval, Daniel Benyamini and Yaakov Menze, all of whom played in the Israel PO. During the quartet's subsequent history, the membership changed several times. Zeev Steinberg joined as viola in 1959; during the 1970s Tal was replaced by Ilan Gronich and Gronich by Raphael Markus; and in 1978 the word ‘New’ was dropped from its title. In 1999 the ensemble included Yigal Tuneh, Elikum Salzman, Robert Moses and Alexander Kaganowsky. The Israel Quartet has concentrated mainly on 20th-century music, especially by Israeli composers. It has performed more then 50 Israeli works, most of them in premières, by such composers as Oedoen Partos, Mordecai Seter, Artur Gelbrun, Josef Tal, Zeev Steinberg, Abel Ehrlich, Joachim Stutschewsky and others. It has given many concerts abroad, thereby promoting its particular repertory.

MICHAL BEN-ZUR

Israelyan, Martun

(b Leninakan, [now Kumayrï, 25 March 1938). Armenian composer. He began his studies at the Leninakon (now Gyumri) Music College, where he learnt to play the kyamancha, an Armenian folk instrument. In 1964, he moved to Yerevan where he studied composition with Eghiazarian (1964–9) at the Yerevan Conservatory. He then taught harmony at the Babadjanian Music College (1969–81) before returning to teach orchestration and composition at the conservatory, of which he has been a professor since 1997. He joined the Armenian Composers' Union in 1969, the year in which he received a prize in the All-Union Young Composers' Competition for the orchestral work Music.

His early works – such as Contrasts (1967), Ensemble (1968) and the Septet (1973) – combine the contemplative and expressive qualities of post-Webernian pointillism and often display stereophonic spatial structures. The expressive sonority employed in these works intensified during the mid-1970s and resulted in the unique timbral qualities of the two books of Taghs for voice (1972, 1974) and the First Cello Sonata (1975). These sonic qualities acquire conceptual significance in the Symphony (1981), the final sections of which are characterized by the prolonged diminuendo in the chord sustained by the strings and soloists, leading to a cathartic coda in which a solo soprano line is underpinned by an orchestral pedal. This work signals the end of his first period after which his language becomes more universal; aspects of neo-Baroque, folkloristic, impressionist and academic styles appear in works in the 1980s and 90s.

Highly systemized organization is a constant feature in his language; the serial technique of early works is superseded by one in which diatonic modality is built up from the melodic transformation of a sequence of fifths. Intervallic cells are embodied in material ranging from the smallest motif to highly developed pentatonic and whole-tone systems which frequently share similarities with the modal formulae of medieval Armenian music. Armenian musical traditions have also influenced the dynamism of his rhythmic and formal structures which are largely flexible, aperiodic and asymmetrical. The structural properties of the monodic taghs of the 10th-century poet-musician Grigor Narekatsi are echoed in Israelyan's freely developed single-movement forms. His works have been heard in Argentina, France, Germany, Russia, Scotland and Switzerland and are frequently performed in Armenia.

WORKS

(selective list)

Inst: Sonatina, pf, 1965; Str Qt no.1, 1966; Contrasts, orch, 1967; Ensemble, fl, cl, vn, vc, perc, 1968; Music, orch, 1969; 3 Duets, vc, pf, 1972; Septet, ww, str, pf, 1973; Sonata no.1, vc, pf, 1975; Capriccio, 14 insts, 1982; Conc., chbr orch, 1982; Conc., vc, str orch, 1983; Conc., vn, chbr orch, 1985; Sonata no.2, vc, pf, 1987; Hymns: Fiat lux, 15 insts, 1989; Str Qt no.2, 1990; Sonata no.3, vc, pf, 1994; Hymns II, pf, 1995Vocal: First Bk of Taghs (G. Narekatsi), Mez, fl, cl, perc, 1972; Second Bk of Taghs (M. Metsarents), S, pf, 1974; 3 Sonnets (H. Edoian), S, chbr orch, 1980; Sym. (Metsarents), S, orch, 1981; Evening Songs (Metsarents), S, pf, 1982; Hatsin yerg'e [The Song of Bread] (cant., D. Varuzhan), S, Ten, chorus, orch, 1984; Autumn Songs (V. Terian), S, orch, 1985; Rhythmus (T. Aquinas), S, str orch, 1991

MSS in Armenian Composer's Union

Principal publishers: Sovetakan Grokh, Sovetskiy Kompozitor

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CC1 (S. Sarkisyan)

S. Sarkisyan: ‘Novïye puti kamerno-vokal'nogo zhanra’ [New directions in chamber vocal music], Sovetskaya muzïka na sovremennom etape, ed. G. Golovinsky and N. Shakhnazarova (Moscow, 1981), 257–60

M. Berko: ‘Liricheskiye monologi Martuna Israelyana’, SovM (1985), no.6, pp.11–14

H. Gerlach: ‘Martun Israelyan’, Sowietische Musik im Licht der Perestroika, ed. H. Danuser, H. Gerlach and J. Köchel (Duisburg, 1990), 348–9

SVETLANA SARKISYAN