Israelis Celebrate With the Sound of Music in Tel Aviv : Music: The Israel Philharmonic plays its first public concert since the beginning of the Gulf War.

They had to balance their gas mask boxes on their knees and the program began with instructions on how to reach the bomb shelter--but there were no complaints on Wednesday from the beaming listeners at the Israel Philharmonic’s first public concert since the Gulf War began.

“It’s just so good to see that things are still going on, that we can still have time to listen to good music,” Lennie Kersen, an immigrant from England, said. “Saddam can’t stop us enjoying ourselves.”

Among the elated crowd, no one was more exultant than violinist Isaac Stern. He had arrived in Israel just two days earlier to perform with Zubin Mehta, who has repeatedly come to Israel during wartime to show his support.

“It’s very hard to find words to explain the special joy it is to be here,” Stern said before the concert began. “To play under these circumstances with old friends” like Mehta.

Stern said that he had watched with frustration from the United States as Israelis struggled with the damage and fear brought by Iraqi missile attacks, but did not feel as if he could do any good as long as civil defense authorities prohibited concerts and other large gatherings. As soon as the ban was lifted, he said, he jumped at the chance to play.

“In a time like this,” he said, “particularly in this kind of non-war war, when the whole rhythm of life is interrupted, this is a continuity, a kind of river of truth and beauty and music that gives a central belonging-ness that you don’t feel anywhere else.”

Mehta, too, was exhilarated, particularly after the audience gave him a standing ovation just for walking on stage--an expression of gratitude for his comforting presence at missile hit sites and in the Israeli media since Jan. 15.

“It’s wonderful,” he said. “This is like our family sitting outside, and we play for them.”

Tel Aviv Mayor Shlomo Lahat declared that although the city’s life has been badly disrupted and major cultural events can still not be held at night, the concert showed that “every day it’s getting closer and closer to normal. People are getting used to it.”

“The main purpose of that idiot,” he said, referring to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, “is to terrorize us, and in this aspect he’s not successful.”

The crowd at the Noga Theater was limited to 500 by civil defense regulations, and the concert held at 3 p.m. to avoid the more missile-prone night-time hours. Five planned Philharmonic concerts in upcoming days will be similarly limited.

But even a semblance of normalcy provided a lift for Tel Aviv residents, many of whom have been staying inside every night, near their gas masks and sealed rooms.

“In these days, we need help keeping our mood up,” lecturer Hannah Greenfeld said. “We lead regular lives, but then at 5 o’clock we all go into our houses like rabbits.”

“Music always brings you to another plane,” she said. “You forget your day-to-day problems.”

Education and Culture Minister Zvulun Hammer praised the audience for coming in a demonstration of their free will and good taste.

“We act as people who have a sword hanging over their heads, but must continue to function,” he said. “‘Our routine means our survival.”

Stern said he hoped he could give people “even a slight sense of balm to the nerves, to the spirit.”

The violinist was featured in the Brahms Concerto, on a program with Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue in C minor for strings, K. 546, and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 7.

Returning to work was also a great relief for the Philharmonic’s musicians, who had not given a live concert for more than a month, canceling at least 17 engagements.

“This is the first war when the orchestra stopped playing,” cellist Elchanan Bregman said. “You feel very frustrated. You can do nothing.”

Principal oboist Bruce Weinstein said he was happy to be able to offer “this kind of escape, if it gives people a couple of hours’ break from worrying about sirens and gas masks.”

“We need it too,” he added. “We’re just sitting around cooped up waiting for God knows what.

Bass trombonist Micha Davis said he had been playing duets with his clarinetist wife at home for the last month, but that he had been forced to stick mainly to short rapid notes, because prolonged notes could frighten the neighbors--they sound too much like the whine of the air raid siren.

Mehta said he found that the musicians “were dying to play.”

“This is our soul food, this music,” he said. “We can’t live without it.”

In contrast to the scene at a televised concert by the Israel Philharmonic three weeks ago, when gas masks were visible under almost every musician’s chair and the announcer declared it the first-ever concert performed from a sealed room, the musicians’ attitude toward civil defense appeared more casual this time, with few toting their gas masks along with their instruments.

But in the nattily dressed audience, stylishly decorated gas mask boxes abounded, some in camouflage greens, some draped with Israeli flags and others in colorful canvas.

Stern, who was introduced to the siren and gas mask routine Tuesday night when Iraq fired a missile that landed harmlessly in central Israel, said the Scuds held little fear for him.

“I have critics much worse than the Iraqis,” he said.