Josef Tal (; September 18, 1910 – August 25, 2008) was an Israeli composer. He wrote three Hebrew operas; four German operas, dramatic scenes; six symphonies; 13 concerti; chamber music, including three string quartets; instrumental works; and electronic compositions.Hirshberg, Jehoash; "Josef Tal: Past, Present and Future", in IMI News 2008/1-2, pp. 15–16 ISSN 0792-6413 He is considered one of the founding fathers of Israeli art music.Seter, Ronit: "Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv: Different News from Israel". In Tempo 59 (233) 46–61 Cambridge University Press (2005)
Biography
Josef Grünthal (later Josef Tal) was born in the town of Pinne (now Pniewy), near Poznań, German Empire (present-day Poland). Soon after his birth, his family (parents Ottilie and Rabbi Julius Grünthal,Fled to the Netherlands, arrested in Eindhoven and deported to Sobibor extermination camp, where he was murdered on April 16, 1943. and his elder sister Grete), moved to Berlin, where the family managed a private orphanage.Eckhardt, Ulrich & Nachama, Andreas: Jüdische Orte in Berlin, 2005, Berlin: Nicolai, p. 153 .Becker, Heidede. Ein Stück Stadt ergründen. Filum Rubrum Verlag, Nauen, Brandenburg (2012), pp. 93–110 Rabbi Julius Grünthal was a docent in the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies (Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums), specializing in the philology of ancient languages.Brocke, Michael; Carlebach, Julius (ed.): Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbiner. K. G. Saur (2004)
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.Der Sohn des Rabbiners Tal was admitted to the Staatliche Akademische Hochschule für MusikToday Berlin University of the Arts. in Berlin and studied with Max Trapp (piano and composition), Heinz Tiessen (theory), Max Saal (harp), Curt Sachs (instrumentation), (oboe), Georg Schünemann (history of music), Charlotte Pfeffer and Siegfried Borris (ear training), Siegfried Ochs (choir singing), Leonid Kreutzer (piano methodology), and Julius Prüwer (conducting). Paul Hindemith —his composition and theory teacher— introduced him to Friedrich Trautwein, who directed the electronic music studio in the building cellar.Gluck, Robert J.: "Fifty years of electronic music in Israel", Organised Sound 10(2): 163–180 Cambridge University Press (2005) 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 unemployed 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 Mandate Palestine.Fleisher, Robert: Twenty Israeli composers: voices of culture. Wayne State University Press (1997) , pp. 67–78
In 1934, the family immigrated to Palestine with their young son Re'uven.Later a member of kibbutz Megiddo, killed in action in the Six-Day War. Tal worked as a photographer in Haifa and Hadera for a short time. The family moved then to Kibbutz 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 Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem, a post he held until 1952. In 1940 Tal married the sculptor Pola Pfeffer. Their son Etan Tal was born in 1948.
In 1951 Tal was appointed lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and full professor in 1978. In 1961 he established the Centre for Electronic Music in Israel.Shiloah, Amnon and Gerson-Kiwi, Edith: "Musicology in Israel, 1960–1980" in Acta Musicologica, vol. 53, no. 2 (July–December 1981), p. 203 He published academic articles, and wrote many music entries in the Encyclopaedia Hebraica. 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, Robert Starer,Starer, Robert. (1987) Continuo – A Life in Music. Random House, New York. pp. 26–44 . Naomi Shemer, Jacob Gilboa, and Yehuda Sharett, conductor Eliahu Inbal, musicologist Michal Smoira-Cohn, cellist Uzi Wiesel, pianists Walter Hautzig, Bracha Eden, and Jonathan Zak, and soprano Hilde Zadek.
Tal represented Israel at the International Society for Contemporary Music (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 (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).
Until his sixties Tal appeared as a pianist"Musical Notes from Abroad", The Musical Times, vol. 79, no. 1144 (June 1938), pp. 466–467"Music in Palestine", The Musical Times, vol. 80, no. 1153 (March 1939), p. 225 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,Markel, Shlomo: On Notation for Electro Acoustic Music and Interactive Environment for Composition, PhD thesis submitted to the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, January 1993Shimoni, Uri; Markel, Shlomo; Tal, Josef: "Icon Notation for Electroacoustic and Computer Music", in: Proceedings of the 14th International Computer Music Conference, Cologne, September 20–25, 1988 pp. 430–436Tal, Josef; Markel, Shlomo; Shimoni, Uri: "Talmark notation for electroacoustic and computer music", in: M.I.M Colloque International "Musique et Assistance Informatique", Marseille, October 3–6, 1990, pp. 169–172 a research project (Talmark) aimed at the development of a novel musical notation system in cooperation with the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and Volkswagen Foundation. During these years his eyesight deteriorated due to macular degeneration 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.Tal, Josef: Musica Nova in the Third Millennium, Israel Music Institute, 2002, The complete cycle of his symphonies conducted by Israel Yinon was released on the German label CPO.
Josef Tal died in Jerusalem. He is buried in Kibbutz Ma'ale HaHamisha, near Jerusalem. Part of his archival legacy is heldHasson, Nir (6 September 2009): "Saving the Holy of Holies of Jewish texts", Haaretz in the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. Almost all of Tal's works are published by the Israel Music Institute (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...Ringer, Alexander L.: "Tal, Josef". in: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, (1980) p. 537
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 and other composers, who set traditional Middle Eastern Jewish melodies within a European, often Impressionist, harmonic vocabulary."Between Two Cultures: A Conversation with Shulamit Ran", Malcolm Miller and Shulamit Ran, Tempo, vol. 58, no. 227 (January 2004), pp. 15–32 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,Malcolm Miller, "Between Two Cultures: A Conversation with Shulamit Ran", Tempo 58, no. 227 (January 2004): 15–32; here 15 and 29. and insisted instead that Israeli music should be judged according to its affinity with concurrent development in European music.
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's definition as the most pertinent it would surely follow that Tal's Piano Sonata,The Sonata for Piano is included in the repertoire of The 13th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition (2011) 1st symphony, 2nd Piano Concerto and other works based on Oriental-Jewish melodies are definitely not Mediterranean.Ron, Yohanan, Expressions of the Twelve-tone Row in the Works of Oedeon Partos and Josef Tal (Orbis Musicae Vol. XI, 1993/4, pp. 81–91)Ron, Yohanan, Josef Tal: "The Death of Moses" Requiem for Solo, Choir, Orchestra and Magnetic Tape – the text and the music (HaArchion le-musica Israelit no. 7, 1995, pp. 14–21)Ron, Yohanan, The Tone as an Idea and a Subject in the Later Works of Josef Tal (Israel Studies in Musicology, Vol. VI, 1996, pp. 71–80)Ron, Yohanan, The "Where and When" in the Compositions of Josef Tal (HaArchion le-musica Israelit No. 9, 1997, pp. 7–16)The Cyclic Concept and the Place of the Tone C in the Works of Josef Tal In: Ron, Yohanan, The Music of Josef Tal – Selected Writings, The Israeli Music Archive, Tel-Aviv University, 2000
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.