Joseph Tal
Encyclopedia
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
. He wrote three Hebrew opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s; four German operas; dramatic scenes; six symphonies; thirteen concerti; chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
, including three string quartets; instrumental works; and electronic compositions. He is considered one of the founding fathers of Israeli art music
Art music
Art music is an umbrella term used to refer to musical traditions implying advanced structural and theoretical considerations and a written musical tradition...
Biography
Pniewy
Pniewy is a town in Szamotuły County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, Poland, with 7,477 inhabitants .Pniewy had once been flooded to make way for a reservoir.- People :...
(now Pniewy), near Poznań
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
, German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
(present-day Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
). Soon after his birth his family (parents Ottilie and Rabbi Julius Grünthal, and his elder sister Grete), moved to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, where the family managed a private orphanage. Rabbi Julius Grünthal was a docent in the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies (Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums
Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums
The Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, or Higher Institute for Jewish Studies, was a rabbinical seminary, established in Berlin in 1872 destroyed by the Nazi government of Germany in 1942...
), specializing in the philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
of ancient languages.http://www.dbc.wroc.pl/dlibra/docmetadata?id=2495&from=&dirids=1&ver_id=80498&lp=1&QI=1C6AF43498B39BF1FF528F80B48E1527-1
Tal's first encounter with music was at the synagogue, where there was a choir and his grandfather served as a non-professional cantor. After attending his first concert, he began to take piano lessons. Tal was admitted to the Staatliche Akademische Hochschule für Musik in Berlin and studied with Max Trapp
Max Trapp
Hermann Emil Alfred Max Trapp was a German composer and teacher. A prestigious figure in the Berlin cultural scene during the 1930s, Trapp, amongst others in the Nazi influenced scene, was regularly invited to contribute to concert programs and competitions.Trapp was born in Berlin and attended...
(piano and composition), Heinz Tiessen
Heinz Tiessen
Richard Gustav Heinz Tiessen was a German composer.-Biography:Tiessen was born at Königsberg, where he studied with composer Erwin Kroll before moving to Berlin. There, he enrolled at Humboldt University and at the Stern'sches Konservatorium, where he studied composition and music theory...
(theory), Max Saal (harp), Curt Sachs
Curt Sachs
Curt Sachs was a German-born but American-domiciled musicologist. He was one of the founders of modern organology , and is probably best remembered today for co-authoring the Sachs-Hornbostel scheme of musical instrument classification with his fellow scholar Erich von Hornbostel.Born in Berlin,...
(instrumentation), Fritz Flemming (oboe), Georg Schünemann (history of music), Charlotte Pfeffer and Siegfried Borris (ear training), Siegfried Ochs
Siegfried Ochs
Siegfried Ochs was a German choir-leader and composer. He first studied medicine and chemistry at the Polytechnikum of Darmstadt and at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg...
(choir singing), Leonid Kreutzer
Leonid Kreutzer
Leonid Kreutzer was a classical pianist.Kreutzer was born to a family of German Jewish parents. He was a highly influential piano teacher at the Berlin Academy of Music , together with Egon Petri...
(piano methodology), and Julius Prüwer (conducting). Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
—his composition and theory teacher— introduced him to Friedrich Trautwein, who directed the electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
studio in the building cellar.
Tal completed his studies in the academy in 1931, and married dancer Rosie Löwenthal one year later. He worked giving piano lessons and accompanying dancers, singers, and silent movies.
Nazi anti-Jewish labour laws rendered Tal jobless and he turned to studying photography with Schule Reimann with the intention of acquiring a profession that would make him eligible for an "immigration certificate" to Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
.
In 1934, the family immigrated
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
to Palestine with their young son Re'uven. Tal worked as a photographer in Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
and Hadera
Hadera
Hadera is a city located in the Haifa District of Israel approximately from the major cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa. The city is located along of the Israeli Mediterranean Coastal Plain...
for a short time. The family moved then to Kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
Beit Alpha and later to Kibbutz Gesher, where Tal intended to dedicate his time to his music. Finding it hard to adjust to the new social reality in the kibbutz, the family settled in Jerusalem where Tal established professional and social connections. He performed as a pianist, gave piano lessons and occasionally played harp with the newly-founded Palestine Orchestra. In 1937, the couple divorced.
Tal accepted an invitation from Emil Hauser to teach piano, theory, and composition at the Palestine Conservatory, and in 1948 he was appointed director of the Rubin Academy of Music
Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance
The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance , founded in 1958 as the Rubin Academy of Music, is located on the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.-History:...
in Jerusalem, a post he held until 1952. In 1940 Tal married the sculptress Pola Pfeffer.
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
where in 1961 he established the Centre for Electronic Music in Israel. He published academic articles, and wrote many music entries in the Encyclopaedia Hebraica
Encyclopaedia Hebraica
The Encyclopaedia Hebraica is a comprehensive encyclopedia in the Hebrew language that was published in the latter half of the 20th century.-History:...
. In 1965 he was appointed senior professor and later chairman of the Musicology Department at the Hebrew University, a post he held until 1971. Among his many pupils are the composers Ben-Zion Orgad
Ben-Zion Orgad
Ben-Zion Orgad was an Israeli composer....
, Robert Starer
Robert Starer
Robert Starer was an Austrian-born American composer and pianist.Robert Starer began studying the piano at age 4 and continued his studies at the Vienna State Academy...
, Naomi Shemer
Naomi Shemer
Naomi Shemer was a leading Israeli songwriter hailed as the "first lady of Israeli song and poetry."-Biography:Naomi Sapir was born on Kvutzat Kinneret, a kibbutz her parents had helped found, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. In the 1950s she served in the Israeli Defense Force's Nahal...
, Jacob Gilboa
Jacob Gilboa
Yehuda Jacob Gilboa was born as Erwin Goldberg and was an Israeli composer.Gilboa was born in Košice, Slovakia. Some years later he lived in Vienna, where he received training in playing the piano. In 1938 he emigrated to Palestine, where he initially studied in Haifa at the Institute for Technology...
, and Yehuda Sharett, conductor Eliahu Inbal
Eliahu Inbal
Eliahu Inbal is an Israeli conductor.Inbal studied violin at the Israeli Academy of Music and took composition lessons with Paul Ben-Haim...
, musicologist Michal Smoira-Cohn, cellist Uzi Wiesel, pianists Walter Hautzig
Walter Hautzig
-Biography:Hautzig studied under Mieczysław Munz. He has taught master classes to hundreds of students all around the world. He has done tours in Japan over 30 times and has performed for President Jimmy Carter...
, Bracha Eden
Bracha Eden and Alexander Tamir
Bracha Eden and Alexander Tamir were Israeli duo pianists and teachers.Bracha Eden was born on 15 July 1928, in Jerusalem. Alexander Tamir was born as Alexander Wolkovsky on 2 April 1931, in Vilnius, Lithuania...
, and Jonathan Zak, and soprano Hilde Zadek
Hilde Zadek
Hilde Zadek is a German operatic soprano.After her hometown became Polish after World War I, her parents moved to Stettin in 1920, where Zadek spent her youth; however as a Jew she was forced to leave Germany in 1934, and settled in then Palestine, where she worked as a nurse in Jerusalem, while...
.
Tal represented Israel at the International Society for Contemporary Music
International Society for Contemporary Music
The International Society for Contemporary Music is a music organization that promotes contemporary classical music.ISCM was established in 1922, in Salzburg. Its core activity is the World Music Days Festival, held every year at a different location. The festival includes cutting edge productions...
(ISCM) conferences and in other musical events and attended many professional conferences around the world. He was a member of the Berlin Academy of the Arts (Akademie der Künste), and a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin
Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin
The Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin in an interdisciplinary institute created 1981 in Berlin-Grunewald for studies in natural, social sciences for various research projects. It is a member of the group Some Institutes for Advanced Study....
(Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).
Until his sixties Tal appeared as a pianist and conductor with various orchestras, but his major contribution to the music world lies in his challenging compositions and his novel use of sonority. In the 1990s Tal conducted, together with Dr Shlomo Markel, a research project (Talmark) aimed at the development of a novel musical notation system in cooperation with the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and VolkswagenStiftung. During these years his eyesight deteriorated and it became increasingly difficult for him to continue composing. Using a computer screen to enlarge the music score, he managed to compose short musical works for few instruments, write his third autobiography, and complete his visionary analysis of future music. The complete cycle of his symphonies conducted by Israel Yinon was released on the German label CPO.
Ma'ale HaHamisha
Ma'ale Hahamisha is a kibbutz in central Israel. Located in the Judean hills just off the Jerusalem–Tel Aviv highway, It falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Yehuda Regional Council...
, near Jerusalem. Part of his archival legacy is kept in the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. Almost all of Tal's works are published by the http://www.imi.org.il/site/Israel Music Institute
Israel Music Institute
The Israel Music Institute is the first publicly owned music publishing house in Israel. It is devoted primarily to the publication of Israeli art music, but also publishes books and booklets on Israeli music and composers, CDs of Israeli art music, and a periodical, IMI News...
] (IMI).
Musical style
The characteristic features of Tal's music are broad dramatic gestures and driving bursts of energy generated, by various types of ostinato or sustained textural accumulations. Complex rhythmic patterning is typical of the widely performed Second Symphony and of a number of notable dance scores. But Tal's marked dramatic and philosophical propensities find total expression only in opera, particularly in the large-scale, 12-note opera Ashmedai…Tal’s early compositional style was a point of some controversy, due to his departure from – and criticism of – the so-called ‘Mediterranean school’ favoured by many Israeli composers at the time. This was an approach pioneered by Paul Ben-Haim
Paul Ben-Haim
Paul Ben-Haim was an Israeli composer. Born Paul Frankenburger in Munich, Germany, he studied composition with Friedrich Klose and he was assistant conductor to Bruno Walter and Hans Knappertsbusch from 1920 to 1924...
and other composers, who set traditional Middle Eastern Jewish melodies within a European, often Impressionist, harmonic vocabulary. He was the most distinctive among the first generation of composers who principally opposed the use of folklorism and orientalism.
On the one hand, like other members of the pioneer generation of composers who emigrated to Palestine in the 1930s, Tal sought to create a new national style distinct from European (and particularly German) modernism. On the other hand, to distance himself from Ben-Haim's "Mediterranean" school he adopted a distinctly modernist style. Tal's music is not monolithic. Despite its dominant atonality, Tal's music has undergone changes and modifications over the years. These changes reflect what occurred over time in Israeli music. Most of the works which Tal wrote around 1950 are characterized by traditional components and frameworks, written in traditional techniques such as variations, and atonal musical language. In the late 'forties and early 'fifties, when the Mediterranean style was at its peak, Tal was a frequent borrower of Oriental-Jewish source material as the basis for his compositions. If we take Ben-Zion Orgad
Ben-Zion Orgad
Ben-Zion Orgad was an Israeli composer....
's definition as the most pertinent it would surely follow that Tal's Piano Sonata, 1st symphony, 2nd Piano Concerto and other works based on Oriental-Jewish melodies are definitely not Mediterranean.
Reflections (1950) is neither tonal nor serial, and inhabits a world not unlike Bartok of the third and fourth string quartets, tempered somewhat by a decidedly Stravinskian acidity, along with a Hindemithian contrapuntal propensity. This, however, should not be taken literally. Cast in three movements, and having a performance time of approximately fifteen minutes, its procedures relate it more to the general neo-classic aesthetic of the late 1930s and 1940s. The use of solo strings played off against the ripieni of the string body points to the Baroque concerto grosso. As if to trump its neo-classical models, the final movement is a “fugue” in which Tal obliquely pays his respects to Hindemith without reverting explicitly to Hindemith’s vocabulary.
Tal's numerous works for traditional media defy classification as part of any "school". No doubt Schoenberg had an early influence on the Berlin composition student. But neither his widely played First Symphony (1952) nor his exceedingly well-wrought String Quartet in one movement, nor, for that matter, his subsequent Cello Concerto is in any structural sense dodecaphonically conceived. While row materials are freely used, the method of composing with twelve tones is nowhere strictly applied, not even in as recent and completely atonal a piece as the Structure for solo harp. Similarly, oriental materials are employed sparingly and with the greatest caution. Whereas the Symphony is actually based on a Persian-Jewish lament as notated by A. Z. Idelsohn, the Quartet no longer goes beyond the use of a few characteristic motifs. And if the Symphony still features a dance section in accordance with the then prevailing tenets of the Mediterranean School, such sacrifices to popular taste, however subtle, have been conspicuously missing in recent years.
A comprehensive examination of Tal's work suggests the following analysis:
(A) First period (works written up to 1959): These have a three-part structure; the micro-structural idea is based on the relationship between notes; the beat and the melodic line occupy an important place among the musical components.
(B) Second period (1959–1967): Characterized by the use of dodecaphonic technique.
(C) Third period (from 1967 on): Characterized by all (instrumental) works being written in one condensed movement. The single note, with its potential implications, is the micro-structural idea. Time, the sound in its various aspects, the rhythmic figure, the color and the texture are the dominant components… The influence of electronic music is in evidence. Transition from one period to the next is gradual, the language in all of them being atonal and the compositions developing from one basic idea.
(D) All Tal's works contain a recapitulation, which he terms "closing the cycle"… Tal sees his compositions as a metaphor for geometric circle, a perfect form, the life cycle. Life begins with the note C (doh) – a "center of gravity"… Tal employs innovative instrumental and orchestral techniques while retaining a predisposition for tradition, especially the Baroque… He divides the orchestra into sound and color group, sometimes also attaching a special texture to each group. This technique is personal and could be called "a special language". The whole orchestra is used sparingly, only at strategic points…
Composer–listener relationship
_-_part.jpg)
Electronic music
Milton Babbitt
Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.-Biography:...
at The Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center that pointed Josef Tal to the technology he needed to found the first electronic music studio in Israel. He learned from Vladimir Ussachevsky
Vladimir Ussachevsky
Vladimir Kirilovitch Ussachevsky was a composer, particularly known for his work in electronic music.-Biography:...
, about a new invention by Canadian inventor Hugh Le Caine
Hugh Le Caine
Hugh Le Caine was a Canadian physicist, composer, and instrument builder.Le Caine was brought up in Port Arthur in northwestern Ontario...
, called the Multi-track. First built in 1955, this device could replay six independent magnetic tapes, with the speed and direction of each tape separately controllable. Le Caine’s idea was to design an instrument to facilitate composition in the Parisian musique concrète tradition of Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist and acoustician of the 20th century. His innovative work in both the sciences —particularly communications and acoustics— and the various arts of music, literature and radio presentation after the end...
. Following a successful fund-raising by Shalheveth Freier
Shalheveth Freier
Shalheveth Freier .Born in Germany; during World War II fled Germany and served with the British Army. He served in Africa and participated in the liberation of Italy. He was involved with smuggling Jewish refugees from Europe to Palestine 1943-46.Freier served Israel in numerous capacities...
the Multi-track which was built for Tal’s studio was completed and delivered to Jerusalem in 1961. It required a trip by Le Caine to correct set it up.
Tal produced some of the earlier examples of electrico-acoustical music, and in this is joined by such as Edgard Varèse
Edgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
, Mario Davidovsky
Mario Davidovsky
Mario Davidovsky is an Argentine-American composer. Born in Argentina, he emigrated in 1960 to the US, where he lives today...
, and Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...
.
As might be expected from a man of his candor, Tal is completely undoctrinaire about electronic music and broaches its problems with the same healthy skepticism that has marked his approach to the twelve-tone method or the issue of a "national" Israeli style. Thus, he declared: "We can make a religion of the purity of the sine-tone, we can use white noise as a counterpart, but we cannot shut our ears to the fact that compared with conventional tone material, as the bearer of sound content, electronic tone material is inherently narrower and more rigid; indeed it has the characteristics of the synthetic…" Imbued with the kind of realism found only in the true idealist, Tal is indeed a liberal in a realm of artistic endeavor where extremism often goes on a rampage. Combining a good deal of modesty with a strong sense of personal value, he impresses even those who find his music rather forbidding and exerts a far more powerful influence on the younger generation than some of his more "successful" colleagues who intoxicate a gullible public with their facile "Mediterranean" orientalism.
Tal was a strong believer in the value of electronic instruments and their potential to transcend the limitations of acoustical means of sound production.
Tal regarded electronic music as a new music language, which he describes as unstable and lacking a crystallized definition. He viewed the computer as an instrument which compels the composer to disciplined thinking. In return, it stores the data it was fed with absolute faithfulness. Nevertheless, when the computer is ill-used, the composer's incompetence will be revealed, as he is unable to unite computer with the realm of music. But according to Tal, composing electronic music has another aspect too: when the composer chooses the computer's music-notation as his tool for creating, he concomitantly annuls the performer's role as an interpreter. From that point on, it is only the composer's mental capacity that counts, and the performance is independent of the interpreter's virtuosity.
Tal integrated electronic music in many of his works for "conventional" instruments, and was actually one of the world's pioneers in doing so. His pieces for electronic music and harp, piano or harpsichord, and operas like Massada or Ashmedai are typical examples.
Following Concerto No.4 for Piano & Electronics premiere (27/8/1962), Herzl Rosenblum
Herzl Rosenblum
Dr Herzl Rosenblum was an Israeli journalist and politician. A signatory of the Israeli declaration of independence, he worked as editor of Yedioth Ahronoth for more than 35 years.-Biography:...
the daily Yediot Ahronot's editor and critic, used the terms "Terror!", "Cacophony" and "Minority dictatorship"...
Tal taught electronic music and composed, for nearly two decades. Upon his retirement in 1980, Menachem Zur became director and remained in this role until the University closed the studio, for a variety of reasons, in the 1990s.
Autobiographies
- Der Sohn des Rabbiners. Ein Weg von Berlin nach Jerusalem (The Son of the Rabbis: A Way from Berlin to Jerusalem). An autobiographyAutobiographyAn autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
, 1985, ISBN 3-88679-123-8. - Reminiscences, Reflections, Summaries Retold in Hebrew by Ada Brodsky, Pulished by Carmel (1997), ISBN 965-407-162-2.
- Tonspur – Auf der Suche nach dem Klang des Lebens (On Search for the Sound of Life), an autobiography, Henschel publishing house Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89487-503-8.
Essays
- article in The Modern Composer and His World, A report from the International Conference of Composers, held at the Stratford Festival (1960), Eds. Beckwith & Kasemets, University of Toronto Press, 1961, pp. 116–121
- National Style and Contemporary Composing, in Bat Kol, Israel Music Journal No. 1 (1961)
- Rationale und Sensitive Komponenten des "Verstehens", in Musik und Verstehen – Aufsätze zur semiotischen Theorie, Ästhetik und Soziologie der musikalischen Rezeption, Arno Volk Verlag (197?), 306–313.
- Music, Hieroglyphics and Technical Lingo in The World of Music, Vol. XIII, No.1/1971 B. Schott's Söhne, Mainz, 18–28.
- Gedanken zur Oper Ashmedai, in Ariel – Berichte zur Kunst und Bildung in Israel, No. 15 (1972), 89–91.
- The Contemporary Opera, in Ariel (30), spring 1972, pp 93–95
- Historical Text and Pretext in the Works of an Israeli Composer, in Fontes Artis Musicae, Vol XXII, 1975/1-2 pp 43–47 (with Israel Eliraz)
- Der Weg einer Oper, Wissenschftskolleg Jahrbuch 1982/83, Siedler Verlag, 355–356.
- Wagner und die Folgen in der Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts, (1983) Universität Bayreuth, Sonderdruck aus Jahresbericht des Präsidenten, 167–181.
- The Impact of the Era on the Interrelation Between Composer, Performer and Listener. Music in Time – A Publication of the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music and Dance (1983–1984), pp. 23–27.
- Musik auf Wanderung – Querschnitte zwischen Gestern und Morgen in Berliner Lektionen, (1992) Bertelsmann, 79–90.
- Ein Mensch-zu-Mensch-Erlebnis im Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin (1994) in Axel von dem Bussche, Hase&Koehler Verlag, 125–131. ISBN 3-7758-1311-X.
- Musica Nova in the Third Millennium, Israel Music InstituteIsrael Music InstituteThe Israel Music Institute is the first publicly owned music publishing house in Israel. It is devoted primarily to the publication of Israeli art music, but also publishes books and booklets on Israeli music and composers, CDs of Israeli art music, and a periodical, IMI News...
, 2002, ISBN 965-90565-0-8
Photography
Tal made a living as a professional photographer for a short period after immigrating to Palestine (1934–1935). He continued to develop films and enlargements as a hobby in makeshift home darkroom for many years afterwards.Awards and prizes
- 1949, 1958, 1977 – The City of Tel AvivTel AvivTel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
Engel Prize - 1957/1958 – UNESCOUNESCOThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
grant for the study of electronic music - 1969 – Member of the (German) Akademie der KünsteAkademie der KünsteThe Akademie der Künste, Berlin is an arts institution in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1696 by Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg as the Prussian Academy of Arts, an academic institution where members could meet and discuss and share ideas...
http://www.adk.de/de/akademie/mitglieder/index.htm?we_objectID=21870 (Academy of the Arts, Berlin) - 1970 – The Israel PrizeIsrael PrizeThe Israel Prize is an award handed out by the State of Israel and is largely regarded as the state's highest honor. It is presented annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state ceremony in Jerusalem, in the presence of the President, the Prime Minister, the Knesset chairperson, and the...
, for music - 1975 – Berliner Kunstpreis http://www.adk.de/de/akademie/preise-stiftungen/Kunstpreis.htm (Art Prize of the City of Berlin)
- 1981 – Foreign Honorary Membership of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters "in recognition of creative achievement in the arts"
- 1982/1983 – Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlinhttp://www.wiko-berlin.de/index.php?id=155&L=1#T (Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin)
- 1982 – Wolf Prize in ArtsWolf Prize in ArtsThe Wolf Prize in Arts is awarded once a year by the Wolf Foundation in Israel. It is one of the six Wolf Prizes established by the Foundation, and has been awarded since 1981; the others are in Agriculture, Chemistry, Mathematics, Medicine and Physics, awarded since 1978...
(Israel) "for his novel approach to musical structure and texture and the unfailing dramatic tension of his creations" - 1985 – (German) BundesverdienstkreuzBundesverdienstkreuzThe Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany is the only general state decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has existed since 7 September 1951, and between 3,000 and 5,200 awards are given every year across all classes...
I Klasse :de:Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland - 1985 – (French) Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des LettresOrdre des Arts et des LettresThe Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
- 1993 – Doctor Philosophiae Honoris Causa of Tel Aviv UniversityTel Aviv UniversityTel Aviv University is a public university located in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. With nearly 30,000 students, TAU is Israel's largest university.-History:...
"In special recognition of his unique operatic works which are evidence of his deep connection with the spirit of Judaism during various periods of history, and his achieving a synthesis between ancient Jewish tradition, and modern-day music" - 1995 – Johann-Wenzel-Stamitz-Förderungspreis der Künstlergilde (Germany)
- 1995 – ACUM prize (Societe D'auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique en Israel)
- 1995 – Yakir YerushalayimYakir YerushalayimYakir Yerushalayim is an annual citizenship prize in Jerusalem, Israel, inaugurated in 1967.The prize is awarded annually by the municipality of the City of Jerusalem to one or more residents of the city who have contributed to the cultural and educational life of the city in some outstanding way....
award (given by the City of Jerusalem) - 1996 – Doctor Philosophiae Honoris Causa of Hochschule für Musik und Theater HamburgHochschule für Musik und Theater HamburgThe Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg is one of the larger universities of music in Germany.It was founded 1950 as Staatliche Hochschule für Musik on the base of the former private acting school of Annemarie Marks-Rocke and Eduard Marks.Studies include various music types from church music...
http://www.hfmt-hamburg.de/html/ueberblick/profil/ehrungen/ehrungen.html - 1998 – Doctor Philosophiae Honoris Causa of The Hebrew University of JerusalemHebrew University of JerusalemThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
"In tribute to his rich musical legacy and in recognition of his contribution to the development of music education in Israel"
External links
- Josef Tal – In Memoriam on The International Association of Music Information Centres web site
- Tal's biography on the IMI web site
- Score catalogue of the Israel Music Institute
- A Conversation with Joseph Tal on the Electronic Music FoundationElectronic Music FoundationElectronic Music Foundation is a not-for-profit 501 organization that produces events, publishes and disseminates media and information, and provides access to materials relevant to the history and creative potential of electronic music....
web site - Josef Tal – Reflections, by Avrohom Leichtling, 2005
- The American Symphony Orchestra will perform the US Premiere of Tal's Symphony No. 2 (1960) in 2009 May 2009
- Discography
- Archival collections at the Music Center of the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem.
- "Lamentation", "Hora" and "By the Rivers of Babylon" performed by Klara Szarvas (harp) and Joseph Weissgerber (Cello)] on Archive.org
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18P8n6q0Mio Kotaro Fukuma performs the Sonata for piano at the Arthur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition, May 2011 in Tel Aviv
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYOPzkihuHc Dmitri Levkovich performs the Sonata for piano (partial) at the Arthur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition, May 2011 in Tel Aviv
- Shimoni, Uri; Gerner, Moti; Markel, Shlomo; Tal, Josef: Studio Report: A New Icon Musical Notation System – TAL