Marc Lavry born 22 December 1903 in Riga, Latvia, died 24 March 1967, Haifa, Israel.
Israeli composer and conductor. Lavry studied in Riga and Leipzig (Germany) at the Conservatories there, and privately with the conductor Hermann Scherchen and the composer Alexander Glazunov. After working as an opera conductor in Saarbrücken, Germany, he became the musical director and conductor of Rudolf von Laban's Dance Theatre in Berlin. He went on to conduct the Berliner SO (1929–32) and the Riga Opera (1932–4). In 1935, with the ascent of Nazism, he emigrated to Palestine. Between 1941 and 1947 he conducted the Palestine Folk Opera and the Palestine Symphony Orchestra (later The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra), and from 1950 to 1958 he was director of Kol Zion LaGola, the Israeli Radio Broadcast for the Diaspora. In 1962 he settled in Haifa, where he continued his musical activities under the sponsorship of the municipality. Lavry's many compositions – orchestral and chamber music, operas, oratorios, popular songs and music for theatre productions - were influenced by his new surroundings. His style became identified with Israeli music during the 1940's. His symphonic poem
Emek (Valley, 1937), based on one of his most popular songs to a poem by Raphael Eliaz, is considered the first symphonic horra. His opera
Dan ha'shomer (Dan the guard, 1945), libretto by Max Brod after a play by Sh.Shalom, is the first opera to be composed and produced in Israel.
Among other works of Lavry:
· Two symphonies -
Warsaw Ghetto (1945) and
Tachach(1951)
·
Piano concerto no.1 (1945) and no. 2 (1947)
· Shir ha-Shirim
(Song of
Songs,arranged by Max Brod), oratorio (1940)
·
Avodat ha-Kodesh
(A Sabbath Sacred Service), oratorio (1954)
· The songs
Ze'ad Shimshon (March, Samson), to a poem of Avigdor
Hammeiri, for unaccompanied choir (1948)
·
Kinneret, to a poem of Avigdor hammeiri, for choir and orchestra (1949)
·
Song
(Zemer), to a poem of Avraham Shlonsky, for voice and piano (1949),
Kittatenu ba-Laylah Zo'edet
(Our Platoon Marches in the Night)
to a poem of Avraham Broides, for voice and piano (1956).
References:
·
Yehuda Cohen,
The Heirs of The Psalmist, Israel's New Music,
Am Oved Publishers Ltd, Tel Aviv
1990 (in Hebrew)
·
Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol.12. 2nd ed. U.S.A, 2007
·
Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2007-2008