It seems like a kind of closing of a circle: the Gevataron band from Geva, the princess of kibbutz culture, is paying tribute to maestro Tzvika Pick, who passed away this week. A tribute to a man who was perceived in his youth as an almost perfect contrast to the existence of the kibbutzim and the “Working Land of Israel”, as a youth idol from Torzan who composes and performs inferior pop songs.
It seems like a kind of closing of a circle: the Hagavetron band, the princess of kibbutz culture, is paying tribute to the maestro who passed away this week. A tribute to a man who was seen in his youth as an almost perfect contrast to the existence of the kibbutzim and the “Working Land of Israel”
On the day of his death, a song performed by the Hagabetron band – “Mat Av and Mat Elul” was uploaded to the web by Galach and Galgalach. According to one of the questions, this is his favorite poem.
The treatment of Zvika Pick as a “negative factor”, representing a clash between cultures, is blatantly illustrated by the story of the connection between him and the poet Natan Yonatan from Kibbutz Sherid. The story was published on the National Library website on September 23, 2021, on the occasion of the 98th birthday of Yonatan who died in the summer of 2004 and was the most composed poet in the Hebrew singer.
The first encounter between Jonathan’s wonderful texts and Peak’s musical virtuosity took place in 1976. Dan Almagor was responsible for the match. He suggested to the poet that Tzvika Pick compose his poem “The Past Years”. According to Almagor, Yonatan the kibbutznik almost infiltrated. He turned pale and said “Zvika Pik? They will throw us out of the kibbutz!” After hearing the melody his mind rested. And this is how the song “The Past Years” opens:
The years that passed between Spring and Cloud
have already passed and are gone. They have already passed and are gone.
But a field sown between a cloud and spring
Pancreas and yields Pancreas and yields.
That first collaboration between the poet and the composer-singer paved the way for the composition of the song “Nasef Tishrei” which was later chosen as Zvika Peak’s favorite song. Fick composed the immortal song following the request of Dalia Heller from “Voice of Israel”, the organizer of the hymn parade for 1977. With the exciting success of the song, a special bond was formed between the poet and the composer. “We both felt that we had created something larger than life,” Tzvika Pick said in an interview.
The treatment of Zvika Pick as a “negative factor”, representing a clash between cultures, is blatantly illustrated by the story of the connection between him and the poet Natan Yonatan from Kibbutz Sherid. According to Dan Almagor, who is responsible for the match, Yonatan almost slipped through the cracks
The song was first published in 1974, about a year after the death of Lior, Natan Yonatan’s eldest son, in the Yom Kippur War. Yonatan opened with the first lines of a poem by Rabbi Shmuel HaNagid, one of the greatest Hebrew poets in medieval Spain. Shmuel the Governor sings about the changing of the seasons and the need for human warmth in the cold winter days. And from here Nathan Jonathan set sail to sing a mournful song about the passing of his son who went before (the) father and was gathered after Tishrei, and thus “only a dull ember” remained from the summer.
“In the beginning,” said Zvika Pick in an interview, “I didn’t delve into the words, the composition flowed quite quickly. During the recording I realized that something unusual was happening here, something very big.” Here is the song:
Tishrei was collected
Father died and Elol died and Hamam died
Tishri was also gathered and died with them
Only a dull ember remained
of the ancient summer love.To the cave of David the Shunammite
Pin her cold thighs
To the warmth of the stones on his graveFather died and God died…
And a foreign boy gives up like Saul
the traces of Av and Elul
And in the dimness he seeks the clear.go boy go Maybe at the end of the west
Between sea and land, between father and autumn
Your Yoar shines through his sins.Father died and God died…
The sins of the man and the woman and the serpent
The sin of David in Uriah, the conquest of Harsh
and Jonathan and the honey forest.Father died and Elul died, the summer returned
Your story my child begins now
With all the honey and the snake and the woman.Father died and God died…”
Some say that this song broke Zvika Pick’s way into the heart of the consensus. But his acceptance in the kibbutzim was not quick and immediate. The reservation about Mbika Peak continued and persisted even in the 1980s.
Some say that this song broke Zvika Pick’s way into the heart of the consensus. But his acceptance in the kibbutzim was not quick and immediate. The reservation about Mbika Peak continued and persisted even in the 1980s
for example, I remember that he was not included in the list of recommended artists and lecturers that were offered to the kibbutzim Mediated by the performance section of the cultural department of the Kibbutz-Ha’artzi movement. Some of the youth guard kibbutzim invited Pick on their own initiative, without the section’s mediation. The partisan invitation seemed unusual and rather daring at the time.
At that time, kibbutzniks still found it difficult to deviate from the menu of songs dominated by Naomi Shemer, Nachcha Heyman, Sasha Argov, etc. They continued to stick to the “songs of the beautiful Land of Israel”, Russian pleasantries, songs of military bands as well as pioneer and patriotic songs which were ironically called “songs of agency”.
The kibbutzim and the youth movements were still trying to fortify themselves in a bubble and protect themselves from the gusts of western popular culture. To avoid light and ideology-free music, from detectives and Stalag stories, which were considered “cheap literature”, from Hollywood cinema and other cultural products from the light and clumsy genre. Zvika Peak is, of course, seen as a distinct embodiment of that culture from which they tried to protect themselves.
It was, of course, a lost war. The walls gradually fell. The tribute of the Hagavetron band to the maestro does indeed come full circle.