Schoenberg for Others

Neither shellfire nor bombing attack has ever ruffled the musicians of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Whether they wear tails or fatigues, play in air-conditioned concert halls, musty airraid shelters or the hot, windy dust bowl of Mount Scopus, they customarily keep near-perfect measure and make fervent music. Last week the 34-year-old orchestra was shaken by another kind of disturbance. Its ordinarily staid and loyal subscribers, protesting the premiere in Israel of Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone Violin Concerto, had tried to get rid of their subscription tickets in droves. Many of those who actually did show up at the performance later walked out of Tel Aviv's Mann Auditorium in mid-concert.

The works of Richard Wagner are not played in Israel because of the composer's personal notions of Nordic supremacy. Richard Strauss, too, goes unheard, largely due to the fact that he held an official title under the Nazis. As a Jew, Arnold Schoenberg had no such racial or political taint. His Violin Concerto, written in 1936 and long considered a classic of atonal music, was simply too "modern" and too unmelodic for the Israel Philharmonic's public, many of whom believe that real music may have stopped with the arrival of Stravinsky. "We come to the concerts tired and want to relax," explained one subscription holder. "We have our own problems and don't need Schoenberg's on top of them."

Empty Seats. No symphony orchestra in the world has a more critical audience than the I.P.O. None has more public support. Its 35,000 subscribers (probably the highest number proportionately in the world) guarantee sellout houses for all 209 of the Philharmonic's yearly concerts. Ninety percent of the orchestra's income, in fact, is derived from subscriptions.

The I.P.O. management, therefore, is naturally sensitive to the taste of its public. Last season, the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Zubin Mehta was chosen as long-range music advisor of the orchestra, and he hoped to modernize the repertory. This season Mehta sandwiched a few more or less contemporary works in with the normal rich diet of Haydn, Beethoven and Brahms. A Bartok violin concerto, a Hindemith symphonic piece, Robert Starer's Samson Agonistes and a piano concerto by Alberto Ginastera all appeared on the programs. Mehta even worked in Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1, though its jagged musical qualities are rather daring by Israeli standards. The players were happy to get away from the old warhorses, but the management was troubled, especially when empty seats--as rare for the I.P.O. as snow in Jaffa--began showing up in Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

It took the Schoenberg concerto--the first of six scheduled performances by Israel-born Violinist Zvi Zeitlin--to bring the taste and tradition crisis to a head. The ticket holders had simply heard enough new music. At the end of the concert at which the walkouts occurred, the management committee decided to drop the Schoenberg. To replace it, Violinist Zeitlin chose a piece well calculated to mollify his tradition-minded audience, Mendelssohn's melodious Violin Concerto. "I approve of the decision," said Mehta on the phone from Los Angeles 10,000 miles away, "but I am not happy about it."

Boo to Mendelssohn. Both the change, and the apparently unexceptionable choice, set off something like a national debate. Editors were swamped with letters, and one subscriber threatened to whistle during the playing of Mendelssohn. Orchestra posters in Jerusalem were defaced with scrawled messages: "Boo to Mendelssohn." Music critics naturally were all for Schoenberg. Only Zeitlin seemed pleased to see such excitement over music. "The whole country is up in arms on the side of Mendelssohn or Schoenberg!" he said. As critical pressure mounted, the orchestra announced a compromise: it would give an extra free performance of the Schoenberg Violin Concerto to all holders of subscription tickets. Even with Zeitlin and Czech Conductor Karel Ancerl donating their services, as they offered to do, the concert would cost I.P.O. $5,000 to put on. "But it will be worth it," said Philharmonic Spokesman Wolfgang Lewy, "just to see how many people will turn out. Besides, the orchestra has an intellectual responsibility to play modern music, even if we do not always enjoy it."

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