The Israel Philharmonic came into being as the state of Israel was founded in 1948. To mark their shared anniversary,
Sheena McDonald tells the story in two programmes of the orchestra's growth in tandem with the state, celebrating a half-century of music-making, triumphs and controversy.
Among the figures interviewed for the first programme are Zubin Mehta , Daniel Barenboim , Isaac Stern ,
Pinchas Zukerman and Noam Sheriff.
The programme includes many recordings which have been held in the music archive of the Israel
Broadcasting Authority for the past 50 years - historic recordings of the IPO conducted by Toscanini, Bernstein, Mehta, Paray,
Mitropoulos, Koussevitzky and Celibidache and a rare record of the music played at the declaration of the state of Israel.
Producer Martin Cotton