Yehoshua Lakner was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, he has lived in Israel since 1941. He has studied under Ö.Partos and A.U. Boscovich. He was later a teacher and composer at the Conservatory in Isreal. In 1952 he studied in the USA with Aaron Copland in Tanglewood, Berkshire Music Centre and in 1959 / 60 at the Studio for Electronic Music of the 'Westdeutschen Rundfunks' in Cologne. 1958 saw the world premiere of his Toccata for orchestra, performed by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, (Engel-Prize of the city of Tel-Aviv). He has lived in Switzerland since 1963 and has produced music for the Zurich Theatre, the 'Theater am Neumarkt' and from 1965 until 1972 he was the composer in residence at the 'Theater an der Winkelwiese'. From 1974 until 1987 he was a teacher at the 'Musikhochschule Zürich' (Zurich School of Music) and Zurich Conservatory. Since his retirement his activities have been concentrated on AVTD or audio-visual time design, that is, compositions for computer and screen. Examples of these have been premiered at the Zurich City Music Podium, on DRS German television, at the University of Bern, Technorama in winterthur, University College London, ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music) 1991 in Zurich, Rubin Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv, and at the 4th European Conference on Software Quality 1994 in Basel. An exhibition of his AVTDs was also organised at the Conference on Software Quality in 1994 and in 1992 in Baden. In 1996 his AVTDs caused much interest when performed at the 'Theater an der Winkelwiese' in Zurich and in 1997 at the Stadttheater in St. Gallen. His prizes include the Engel Prize of the City of Tel-Aviv, the music prize from the Salomon David Steinberg Foundation and in 1987 until 1988 a sabbatical year for composition awarded by the city of Zurich.
Work list
Corner Stones (1946)
Instrumentation: for piano
Nineteen simple contrapuntal studies; Two-part, between Bach and Bartok.
An unusual example of a sonata in three movements of the so-called ‘temperately modern’. A slow introduction, fast first movement with a syncopated theme, adagio, allegro and a kinetic ending.
Instrumentation: for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon and piano
The sextet is basically a dialogue between the rhythmic ‘Western’ elements of the piano and the lyrical ‘Eastern’ elements of the wind quintet, Both opposing elements are born from the same core.
A model of pitch without any note value. Verbal instructions are to be given in all segments as to what is to be performed; only the first and last segments have the rhythmical configuration exactly notated.
Wait till silence settles ... a figure consisting of four notes gropes its way upwards, stops ... hits with sforzato ... rewinds into itself ... more take-offs and stops follow.
The whole piece is derived from three chords (Alef, Beth, Gimmel). Already the beginning reproduces the speech rhythm of the first three letters of the Hebrew alphabet.