Shmueli, Herzl
SHMUELI, HERZL
SHMUELI, HERZL (1920–2001), Israeli musicologist. Shmueli was born in Istanbul to parents of Russian descent. He began studying violin at 7 and piano at 10. In 1933 the family immigrated to Israel, where he studied with P. Ginzburg (until 1934) and later attended the Tel Aviv conservatory (1944–48), where he studied theory and composition with *Boscovitch. During 1950–53, he studied musicology in Zurich with Cherbuliez, composition and history with Hindemith at the university, and acoustics in the Zurich Eidgenuesische Technische Hochschule für Music. Receiving a Ph.D. for his thesis, on Jehudah Arjeh Moscato (1953, published in 1954), he returned to Tel Aviv and began teaching at the Israeli Academy of Music and at the Music Teachers' Seminary, of which he subsequently became director (1955–66). In 1966 Shmueli was one of the founders of the Musicology Department of Tel Aviv University, where he subsequently became the head of the department (1971–74, 1987–89) and professor. Shmueli established the Archive for Israeli Music there and served as dean of the Faculty of Visual and Performing Arts (1983–86) and chairman of the Israeli Musicological Society (1969–71). Shumeli was one of the pioneers in the research of Israeli music. His research centered on the Israeli song and art music, music education, and European music in the 18th–19th centuries. He emphasized the connections between music and other disciplines and established a methodology for analysis of the Israeli song. He directed a series of programs on music for Israeli Instructional tv and was consultant for the music department in the educational television division from 1969 to 1972. He edited several periodicals, among them music periodicals for youth (1957–66). Shmueli published books in Hebrew including Ommanut ha-Musikah ("Musical Theory," 1954), Toledot ha-Makhelah ("History of the Choir," 1963), and books about the Israeli song (1971), and Alexander Boscovitch, the latter with Jehoash Hirshberg (1995). Among his articles are "Stilelemente in Israeli-Lied 1925–1950," in Festschrift Hans Conradin zum 70. Geburtstag (1983), 249–60, and "Adolf Bernhard Marx (1795–1866): Deutscher Musiker, Judische Herkunft – Eine Dokumentation," in Essays in Honor of Hanoch Avenary (1990–1991), 216–28. He received the Israel Prize for musical research in 2001.
bibliography:
Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (1997).
[Uri (Erich) Toeplitz /
Naama Ramot (2nd ed.)]