Contemporary witnesses

Josef Tal came to the Hochschule für Musik (later the Berliner Hochschule der Künste, today: University of the Arts, Berlin) as a student of piano, harp and composition. 

There, the Music Pedagogical Seminar, one of the first training seminars for private music teachers, had been established; Frieda Loebenstein was the director. Students from other disciplines also were permitted to take Seminar courses, and Josef Tal did so.

The Seminar was one of Kestenberg's special projects. Tal recalls the time when he was demonstrating how he conducted a piano lesson with his young student just as Kestenberg made a surprise visit.

Later, Tal and Kestenberg had many subsequent encounters in Palestine, now Israel, including one at a prize ceremony where both were honoured for their contributions to the development of music education in their new homeland.