Three Songs, One Motif
by shionline
I like classical music. A lot, but not enough to never be bored with it. I start an opera, and then just sort of never finish watching any. One of my favorite things, though, is to look up classical melodies and motifs that ended up having a major part in Israeli culture, and the little connecting dots, and differences, between our version, and the original.
The best example to this is the one I’m not going to discuss, but one of our most famous Hannukah songs is this, which is much more familiar and beautiful as this choir performance to Handel’s 327148th oratorio, Juddas Maccabeus. However, probably the biggest classical motif in Israeli culture, is La Mantovana. And this is when things get a little bit obscure.
La Mantovana is a motif, as I am told by Wikipedia, that existed since the 17th century. There were two very famous uses of it. We’ll look at three, because I’m feeling archetypical.
Ma Vlast: Die Moldau, Bedřich Smetana
This might be the earliest and most famous one of the three, and it’s still not exactly familiar. It’s a beautiful melody, and written as the second in a set of symphonic poems, written between 1874 and 1879. Each one depicts a beloved aspect of Bohemia, which was a country at some point. the Moldau is the German name for the Vlatva, the river running through Prague. Two world wars later, in which that area changed its name more times than a runaway war-criminal, it still manages to evoke a sense of patriotism along with a love of nature. I wish Jerusalem had a river.
This song, still referring to the Moldau river, was written by Bertolt Brecht. Now, with someone as prolific as Brecht, it’s sometimes very hard to find information about his lesser-known songs, and Moldau is no exception. However, it does have a nice Hebrew translation, and Eisler was clearly quoting Smetana in his composition.
What I really find to be lovely about it, is that instead of raving about the idyllic countryside, Brecht does what he did best during his early years in the Weimar republic. He takes a rather beautiful classical theme, and makes it about slaughtering dictators.
Bravo.
And, with my national anthem on topic, return to patriotism as our leading motif. Personally, I don’t like Hatikvah at all- To me, it seems that everything that was good about Smetana’s composition seems to disappear completely when the lyrics are added. To anyone too lazy to check them on the video above, they go, roughly:
Jews, Jews, Jews
We are the Jews
This is our country
And Jerusalem is Jewish
So fuck off.
You can probably tell while I’m not hugely in favor of a national anthem that ignores about a quarter of the country’s citizens. I also have gripes about the melody- The pacing was slowed for the anthem, which makes is drag very unpleasantly, and makes the song last forever. Have I mentioned that the original version had ten verses, each separated by the refrain?
But the one thing I like, in an ironic sort of way (I’ll spare you another hipster .gif), is how we’ve gone from patriotism, to revolution, and back. If the history of my national anthem has taught me one thing, it’s that we can’t let the powers we fight against assimilate us. Bertolt Brecht a vehemently anti-Nazi, and spent years in exile from Germany. Years later, a country that rose because of this war he was so much against, is denying human rights from millions of people, and uses one of inspirations as its national anthem. I’d like to think that he’s rolling around, but only because the mental image makes me smile.
The Escapist 