Gradenwitz, Peter, 1910-2001

(b Berlin, Jan 24, 1910; d Tel Aviv, July 27, 2001). Israeli musicologist of German birth. He studied in Freiburg with Wilibald Gurlitt and Berlin with Arnold Schering and Curt Sachs and (from 1934) at the German University of Prague, where he specialized in musicology under Gustav Becking and took his doctorate in 1936 with a dissertation on Stamitz. He was also a composition pupil of Julius Weismann in Freiburg and Josef Rufer in Berlin. He became a freelance lecturer and critic and edited a broadcast series, but soon after the establishment of the Nazi regime he was exiled, settling first in London, where he took courses in piano technology and instrument building at the Northern Polytechnic. In 1936 he went to Israel and as a publisher contributed to the development of modern and avant-garde art music by Israeli composers. With the establishment of a musicology department at the Tel-Aviv University in 1966, he was appointed lecturer in music history, especially contemporary music; he held the post until 1977. In 1980 he became an honorary professor at the musicological seminary of Freiburg University. In his research he specialized in early symphonic style, particularly the works of Johann Stamitz, Jewish music, music in Israel, Arnold Schoenberg and orient-occident cross-relations. He was a co-founder of the Israeli section of the ISCM and was the founder and director of Israeli Music Publications (1949–82).