Symphony No.2 - Paul Ben-Haim

NDR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Israel Yinon I - Molto moderato: 0:00 II - Allegretto vivace: 12:45 III - Andante affetuoso: 22:45 IV - Finale. Allegro deciso: 32:14 On 14 October 1945, Ben-Haim completed the score of Symphony No.2, his longest orchestral work. The final stages of the work on the Symphony coincided with the last months of World War II. The oppressive atmosphere of depression and fear, which prevailed at the time of composition of Symphony No.1 (1940) had gradually given way to hope. The title page of the autograph of Symphony No.2 represents a new stage in Ben-Haim’s absorption in Palestine. So far the title pages of all the works he composed in Palestine were written in French, in which he was fluent. This was a reaction against Germany. He continued to use his previous name, Frankenburger, which was still the official name in his passport. The title page of the new symphony is in English and his name appears as “P. Ben-Haim“. The symphony preserves the classic-romantic four-movement sequence. On the title page of the autograph Ben-Haim wrote a motto from a poem by Israeli poet Sh. Shalom (Shapiro, 1904-1990), “Wake up with the dawn, O my soul, on the peak of the Carmel above the sea”. It expresses the prevailing mood of the first movement: hope and optimism. It opens with an extended, pastoral flute melody, which unfolds over a suspended soft strings chord. The peaceful, lyrical movement is monothematic, with the flute melody moving to other solo instruments, to orchestral tutti, and leading to an excited climax. The modal, Lydian character of the movement is stressed by a replacement of the perfect fourth in the opening motive by a tritone. The movement has an exposition and a development, but no recapitulation, thus postponing the concluding stage to the Finale. The second movement is a Scherzo in the traditional ternary form. The Scherzo section is a quote of one of the songs Ben-Haim had arranged for singer Bracha Zephira, who was a unique personality in the history of Israeli music. From 1939 she started to commission instrumental accompaniments from local composers, the most active of them was Ben-Haim, who made 35 transcriptions for her and regularly accompanied her on the piano. This was his introduction to the genuine traditional music of the Eastern Jewish communities. The main theme of the Scherzo is the first phrase of the Persian dance to which the Sefardi scholar and educator Yitzhak Navon fitted the words of the song Mibein lahakat segel (“From among the group of beauties I singled you out“). The dance song is converted into a Beethovenian mysterious scherzo. The Trio is a strongly contrasted climactic outburst, leading to a modified return of the Scherzo. The slow movement opens with a tragic, emotional outcry of the full orchestra, expressing the terrible pain which engulfed the small, Jewish community of Palestine when the full reports of the Holocaust reached Palestine (Ben-Haim’s sister was among the victims). Then follows a second quote of an arrangement for Bracha Zephira, this time fitted with a poem by pet Sha’ul Tschernihowsky, Yeled li nitan (“A child is born unto me“). This time the quote is completely incorporated into the main theme of the slow movement. Contrasted to the mono-thematic opening movement, the Finale is a struggle of three contrasted motives. The movement opens with a powerful outburst, clearly influenced by the Finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. This is followed all of a sudden by a light horah dance, with the characteristic syncopations and alternations between major and minor thirds which emulated the Arabic interval of 3/4 tone typical of maqam rast. The excited development combines the two motives into a large scale fugue which climaxes with a recapitulation of the opening flute motive of the symphony, this time as a glorious and optimistic apotheosis. In his programme notes for the premiere of his first symphony, Ben-Haim made a comment which perfectly suits the second one as well: “It is self-evident that this work... is not free from the influence of contemporary events... Nevertheless, the work remains pure absolute music, and I made no attempt at concrete extra-musical depiction. If anyone considers this a contradiction, I respond with the beautiful words of Schumann, applying them to myself without too much modesty: “All contemporary events affect me: politics, literature, people; I think about everything in my usual way, and in my music it all seeks for an outlet and bursts out into the open.“ Ben-Haim’s Symphony No.2 is close to Mahler’s conception of a symphony as a large scale, multi-movement composition, heavily loaded with musical connotations ensuing from the tumultuous world around him, while still not programmatic in any way. Picture: “A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie“ (1866) by the American painter Albert Bierstadt. Source: