The symphony no-one wanted to hear is going on tour
NewsThe first symphony of Paul Ben-Haim languished for decades in the vaults of the Israel Music Institute, unsought and untouched.
In January 2020, Lahav Shani performed it at his first concert as music director-designate of the Israel Philharmonic.
Next week, they are taking it on tour in the US, with a shiny new DG recording.
I wish Noam Sherriff, PB-H’s star pupil, was alive to see this.
Shiny and new, but already recorded
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJA-mcZ6tcI
So….
What;s a problem?
How many times Dvorak 9 is recorded?
The symphony was recorded by – other than Israel Yinon/CPO
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Kenneth Alwyn
CBS 72429 (Israƫl)
Chandos CHAN20169
BBC Philharmonic
Omer Meir Wellber
Breslav Symphony Orchestra
Artur Rosenthal
Aries LP 1618
Aries! I had forgotten about that LP label. So many interesting recordings … so many deliberately obfuscated origins. Most of the conductor names were evidently created, with notable exceptions such as Sir Adrian Boult.
What a boring album cover- man with beard holding a baton without an orchestra in sight. No wonder so many young folk ridicule classical music !
Could have had a nice artistic cover
I agree, a photograph of Ben Haim , the score, a landscape , painting or new design would have been better. However, DGG thinks otherwise.
Young folk will not buy this disc…
Peter, thereās no disc to buy. Itās a 30 minute download or stream.
DGG do have a track record for this sort of thing; think for example of all those Bruckner and Shostakovich recordings with Nelsons on the cover trying to look profound.
While an artist’s mugshot on the cover probably keeps costs down, it is always preferable to have something on the front that might be relevant to the social, artistic or geographical context of the recorded work – and probably more aesthetically attractive than much of what we get nowadays.
And it strikes me that I haven’t even mentioned composers…
If you find him sexy or compelling, it’s fine.
Ben-Haim (or Paul Frankenburger) is a very good composer who had an excellent education in munich. The Symphony was performed by Metha, also with players of Berlin Philharmonic, decades ago.
How relevant was that education to creating a music for the new nation of Israel?
A terrific piece. Have recently been enjoying the excellent recording on CPO under Israel Yinon issues nine years ago. Also the 2nd…
So happy about that!
https://basiaconfuoco.com/2019/06/07/paul-ben-haims-evocation-what-a-discovery/
Billing should be: composer, work, orchestra, conductor. Here it is conductor, orchestra, composer, work.
No doubt the online-streamed movements, redubbed “songs,” will confuse people still further.
“Song” is starting to mean “piece of music”. Don’t get me started.
I feel your pain, Petros. Even after working for years at Tower Records Classical Annex, I never got used to the classical newbies using that phrase.
Example: “I really like that Beethoven 5th. Do you have any more of his songs?”
(Nota bene: I have nothing against classical newbies. They made up a large part of total record/CD/DVD/cassette sales. And they were really pleasant customers.)
Must have been hard not to cringe.
Of course, today’s classical newbies are tomorrow’s buffs. But do the real lovers start with Beethoven’s fifth? That’s not what I’ve seen, but what was your experience?
Thanks for the reply!
My experience at Tower was that the newbies requested things (“songs”) they heard in movies or on radio/TV.
Lots of requests for Carmina Burana, Verdi Requiem, Ride of the Valkyries, Adagio for Strings, Mahler 9 Adagietto, Bolero, Nessun Dorma, Beethoven 5 (because of the disco Beethoven 5, which was a huge dance club hit), Rachmaninoff 3rd Concerto, etc. etc. etc.
I was very gratified when the newbies enjoyed the full and/or original versions of their favorite “songs” and came in for the SECOND time wanting even MORE music.
Ah, the good old days of record stores….
Brain fart – of course I meant the Mahler 5 Adagietto.
No point in trying to educate a record company… Ignorance is their stock in trade.
Second rate German Kapellmeister music with a few Middle Eastern motifs clumsily added, like zaāatar on a dumpling. Of historical significance but not of musical interest. And to think that the other day you were having a go at Hans Rott for being stodgy!
This is the story of German Jews in Palestine, and later in Israel. They never assimilated, though they tried hard. I went to school with the kids of a few of them; one of my girlfriends was also second generation. They were all ashamed or at least felt uncomfortable about their parents – they stuck out and were culturally from another planet, certainly another era; formal and stiff in a culture that abhors formality, sticklers for rules in a culture of ×פ××£. So Paul Ben-Haim’s work is unintentionally an eloquent expression of his predicament and that of his tribe.
The composer’s name and work look like small print on the cover.
I sincerely hope Lahav Shani continues his quest for forgotten music. Recently he performed Willem Pijper’s second symphony(1922) in Rotterdam and Berlin.
This symphony by Paul Ben Haim bodes well.
Every country, every city, every demographic group has its own neglected composers and works sitting on dusty shelves, that if every orchestra played the ones identified/associated with them, there would be material enough for the next ten seasons without ever revisiting the canon or even commissioning new works.
I see a trend now in programming for every concert; one canon per program as the anchor, always after the intermission, opening with a newly commissioned work, followed by a neglected work, before the intermission, for a ratio of 1 canon to 2 or 3 non-canon pieces per concert.
I see another trend: the new pieces are ecstatically reviewed by critics, the canon is played solidly but unremarkably.
And everyone — orchestra, conductor, audience, critic — seems to be content with this formula, musically and morally.
This is encouraging…the Berlin Philharmonic takes the Korngold symphony on tour, now the Israel Philharmonic takes the Ben-Haim. Not the safe, familiar warhorses! I wish they were playing in my area so I could go!
Should be a best seller no doubt…..
It would seem an obvious and relevant niche for the Israel Philharmonic would be to revive (and tour) all the Jewish composers suppressed by the Nazis. A message that they tried but failed to wipe them out.
Shouldn’t the title of the recording’s cover be the other way around? The composer deserves to have his name at the top in bold. Instead we have Lahav Shani, no doubt egotistically thinking he is far more important, doing a von Karajan.
The conductor does not decide the design. The label decided that the conductor has bigger sales power than the composer – were they wrong?
….and? This piece is hardly unknown, it has already been recorded multiple times and performed by major orchestra. It is also a piece of limited musical interest, imho
It’s total junk and shows how poor a composer he was.
Another of his pupils sadly no longer alive was Ami Maayani. Both he and Noam Sheriff were wonderful and charismatic teachers, and important figures in the Israeli classical music world.
I know of the composer Ben-Haim but I’ve never heard of the conductor!!
Iām not sure what this article is about. Very cryptic. You donāt like the composer and/or his symphony? You have disdain for DG? The IPO and/pr its conductor? You know someoneās star pupil well enough to wish heād articulate something? Fill us in.
The symphony has already been performed and recorded a number of times.