Prof. Alon Schab
Professor Alon Schab specializes in historical musicology and in analysis of early music. He has joined the music department at Bar-Ilan University in 2023. He specializes in English music from the 17th century, early music performance practice, and critical editing. In addition to these areas, he also focuses on the “Sulzerian” tradition of 19th-century Ashkenazi music, the local music scene during the British Mandate period, and the history of rock music.
CV
I studied for my undergraduate degree in musical performance (recorder) and composition at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, where I also completed a master’s degree in composition. I received my PhD in musicology from Trinity College Dublin, with a dissertation on the compositional technique of Henry Purcell. In the summer of 2023, I was invited as a visiting fellow at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, UK, and in the summer of 2025 at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland.
Over the years, I have taught courses at the Jerusalem Academy and served as a senior faculty member in the Department of Music at the University of Haifa. From 2019 to 2022, I was Chair of the Israeli Musicological Society, and since 2016 I have been a member of the editorial committee of the Purcell Society. I am particularly proud to have received the Rector’s Prize for Scientific Innovation (2022–23) and to have been elected to the Israeli Young Academy in 2025.
Several moments stand out as especially meaningful in my research career. In 2010, I took part in the re-discovery of the Israeliten manuscript, the earliest known source for Schubert’s setting of Psalm 92 (Tov L'hodos). I reconstructed the scores of string quartets by Grigory Kompaneyets and Gabriel Jacobsohn and helped to bring them back to the concert hall after decades of neglect, in performances by the Carmel Quartet. During the coldest days of January 2023, I sat in St Jude-on-the-Hill Church in north London accompanying the recording sessions of Ensemble Arcangelo for a trio sonata by Buxtehude that I reconstructed from the surviving basso continuo part.
Alongside my work on musical reconstruction, I continue to take great pleasure in the study of Henry Purcell’s music, while also pursuing research on Elizabethan music, the works of Georg Muffat, Baroque orchestration, the musical reforms of the Viennese cantor Salomon Sulzer, historically informed performance, musical life in Palestine during the Yishuv period, and the analysis of popular music.
Research
I am a historical musicologist who cannot resist analysis, an analyst committed to historical research. Therefore, my research yields two main types of scholarly fruit. The first type is in the form of critical editions (musical scores) that offer an investigation of sources. For example, reconstructing the most accurate version of a composition based on the examination of dozens of manuscripts in which it has been preserved. The second type includes articles that delve into the creative process – how the composers composed their pieces, what they did before and after, why they chose one instrument over another, what revisions they made to the composition, and why.
My excitement is palpable every time I step into a library, and my heart races every time I enter an archive. People like me, who become addicted to studying handwritten works of composers from over 300 years ago and reading books from 400 years ago, must find a way to turn their research into a profession. There is no greater satisfaction than bringing back to life works that have been lost or forgotten for decades or centuries. I take great pride in the pieces I have reintroduced to the concert hall, and I hope to continue discovering forgotten works that still have the power to move an audience.
Just as Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is a highly successful product of principles learned in biology, chemistry, physics, and neuroscience departments, the laws of Newtonian mechanics are ultimately the creation of a creative and original individual who operated in a specific historical context and was influenced by social, economic, and personal incentives. One cannot separate Newton’s thoughts from the literature he read, the music he heard, and the people who surrounded him. In humanities faculties, people study human beings and learn to appreciate thinking, creativity, problem-solving, and, in many cases, uncover the past. In my opinion, belonging to the Faculty of Humanities is like belonging to an elite detective unit.
Specifically in the Department of Music, first and foremost, we have an outstanding selection of researchers and scholars who are also remarkable creators. They provide students with an extremely diverse (and multidimensional) view of music – from different eras, different styles, different cultures. The department is comprised of people whose deep love for music arises from both curiosity about it and the desire to use music as a means to touch people's hearts and souls. If you can choose to spend three years (or much more) among such people and learn from them the ways of observation and creation, it is probably the best possible choice one can make.
Courses
📋 Course List
🎼 History of Western Music [2]
🔍 Research Planning and Organization
🎸 History of Popular Music
📜 John Dowland: Man, Music, and Myth
Publications
Books
Alon Schab, A Performer’s Guide to Transcribing, Editing, and Arranging Early Music (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2022).
Alon Schab, The Sonatas of Henry Purcell: Rhetoric and Reversal (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2018).
Articles
Alon Schab, ‘Cinematic Representations of Musical Creativity—the Myths of Amadeus, The Beatles, and Freddie Mercury’, Music and the Moving Image 18.2 (Summer 2025), 49–70.
Alon Schab, ‘The Legacy of Purcell’s Ayres for the Theatre’, Early Music (2025).
Alon Schab, ‘Vivaldi’s Chamber Concertos and his Opus 10: A study in Comparative Orchestration’, Music Theory and Analysis 11.2 (2024), 196–240.
Alon Schab, ‘Amateur Musicianship and Dance Tune Collecting c.1700, Bodelian, Ms. Mus. C. 45’, The Bodleian Library Record 36/1–2 (2023), 126–140.
Alon Schab and Eran Shalev, ‘The American Invasion: The Rock Opera and the Beginnings of Rock Music in Early 70’s Israel’, Journal of Israeli History (2023).
Alon Schab, ‘The Concept Album and the Early Music Revival’, Journal of Musicological Research 40/4 (2021), 323–348.
Alon Schab, ‘Purcell Performances in Palestine under the British Mandate’, Early Music 47/4 (November 2019), 533–550.
Alon Schab, ‘Dowland’s Lachrimae: A Passionate Interpretation’, The Musical Times (Summer 2016), 17–35.
Alon Schab and David Rees, ‘A New Source for Schubert’s Hebrew Psalm 92’, Nineteenth Century Music Review 13/1 (June 2016), 71–81.
Alon Schab, ‘Revisiting the Known and Unknown Misprints in Purcell’s Dioclesian’, Music & Letters 91/3 (2010): 343–56.
Alon Schab, ‘Distress’d Sources? A critical consideration of the authority of Purcell’s Ayres for the Theatre’, Early Music (November 2009): 633–45.
Last Updated Date : 23/03/2026
