Paul Ben-Haim, one of the leading Israeli composers of his generation, was born Paul Frankenburger in Munich. He studied composition with Friedrich Klose and served as assistant conductor to both Bruno Walter and Hans Knappertsbusch. His extensive output comprises works in all the principal genres, apart from opera, and music either for or with cello features prominently throughout. After he emigrated, Ben-Haim increasingly advocated a specifically Jewish national expression; his own compositions favoured a late-Romantic vein suggestive of Ernest Bloch and were frequently informed by Middle-Eastern overtones.