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(b Paris, Nov 30, 1813; d Paris, March 29, 1888). French pianist and composer. His real name was Morhange. He was one of the leading piano virtuosos of the 19th century and one of its most unusual composers, remarkable in both technique and imagination, yet largely ignored by his own and succeeding generations.

Of Jewish parentage, Alkan was the eldest of five brothers, all of whom, with an elder sister as well, became musicians under the assumed name Alkan; Napoléon Alkan, the third brother (1826–1910), taught solfège at the Paris Conservatoire for over 50 years. Valentin Alkan’s career at the Conservatoire started brilliantly with a premier prix for solfège at the age of seven. When Alkan was nine Cherubini observed that he was ‘astonishing for his age’ and described his ability on the piano as ‘extraordinary’. He won a premier prix for piano in 1824, for harmony in ...

(d 1944/5). French music publisher. By acquiring the catalogues of Hachette and especially Benoît, he became the publisher of operas by Auber and Meyerbeer. These, and exclusive rights to Plaisir d’amour, enabled Deiss to publish much modern music including works by Aubert, Harsányi, Koechlin, Schmitt and, in the 1930s and 40s, Rieti, Mihalovici and Milhaud. Though opera, song and piano works formed the bulk of his catalogue, Deiss also published some symphonic and instrumental music, dance music, and music for the cinema and the music hall. Information on his life is lacking, as are precise details of his publishing house, but it is known that he was arrested by the Vichy authorities in France on account of his Jewish ancestry and sent to a German concentration camp where he was executed in ...

(fl Paris, 1690–1719/20). French music dealer and publisher. It is not known whether he was related to earlier publishers with the same family name, none of whom was apparently involved in music printing. Like other 18th-century music dealers, Henri Foucault was associated with the corporation of haberdashers and jewellers rather than that of the booksellers. He was originally a paper seller, with a shop ‘A la règle d’or’, rue St Honoré, but seems to have branched out from this trade by 28 June 1690, when a condemnation issued by the Conseil d’Etat accused him – in association with the engraver Henri de Baussen – of contravening Christophe Ballard’s royal privilege by publishing ‘divers airs de musique’. Two years later Foucault’s name appears on the title-page of Marais’s Pièces en trio pour les flûtes, violons et dessus de viole, in association with Hurel, Bonneüil and the composer, but he is still designated simply as ‘marchand papetier’. However by ...

Musical life in modern Jerusalem can be divided into two separate spheres: the liturgical music of the various Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious communities who maintain their living musical traditions; and Western secular art music.

Most of the many Jewish religious musical traditions are represented in the synagogues of the various communities, the most ancient being of Middle Eastern origin, mainly from the Yemen, Baghdad, Kurdistan, Iran, Bokhara and Syria. On further investigation, these may prove to preserve elements of musical traditions from biblical times. There are also representatives of the musical traditions of Spanish-based Sephardi communities, especially those from North Africa, Greece and Turkey, as well as of the mainstreams of eastern European Ashkenazi tradition, namely Hasidism (which created in Jerusalem a special vocal style imitating instruments, stimulated by the ban on instrumental music imposed to signify mourning for the destruction of the Temple) and its opponents, Mithnagdim, who developed a Jerusalem version of the Lithuanian-style Bible cantillation. Western European communities, mainly from Germany, also have synagogues with their own musical traditions....

Israeli institution dedicated to the research and propagation of liturgical and para-liturgical Jewish music. It was founded in Jerusalem in 1957 as the Israel Institute for Sacred Music by Avigdor Herzog, a former student of Kodály and Szabolcsi, to study and preserve the musical traditions of the Jewish communities that converged on Israel during the mass immigrations of the 1950s. Herzog, the centre's first director, wanted to preserve these disparate traditions before they were diluted in the melting-pot of modern Israel and so developed the institute on ethnomusicological and educational lines. He recorded the sacred songs of various communities and, under the title Renanot, periodically published leaflets of selected transcriptions, based on Bartók's methods. Working alongside Herzog were Yehoshua Leib Neeman, who published books and records on biblical cantillation and liturgical chants according to eastern European tradition, Meir Shimíon Geshuri, who investigated Hasidic music and Uri Sharvit, who researched Yemenite chants. The institute organized an annual musicological conference and, from ...

Israeli string quartet. It was founded in 1959 and the original members were Chaim Taub (b Tel-Aviv, 1 Aug 1925), Uri Pianka, Daniel Benyamini (b Tel-Aviv, 17 April 1925) and Uzi Wiesel (b Tel-Aviv, 8 Jan 1927). Pianka was replaced in 1963 by Menahem Breuer, who was in turn succeeded by Yefim Boyko (1971–83) and Lazar Schuster (from 1983). Taub was educated in Israel, studying the violin with Oedoen Partos, then at the Juilliard School of Music, New York, with Galamian (1947–51). After an engagement with the Pittsburgh SO he joined the Israel PO in 1959, and soon became its leader. He teaches at the Rubin Academy of Music, Tel-Aviv. Benyamini studied at the Shulamit Conservatory, Tel-Aviv, and then at the Jerusalem Academy. He joined the Israel PO in 1950 and became its principal viola in 1960. Wiesel studied at the Tel-Aviv Academy, in New York, and with Casals in Prades (...