Józef Koffler

Józef Koffler
Józef Koffler around 1931
Born	28 November 1896 Stryj, Austria-Hungary
Died	1944 Krosno, Poland
Fields	Music
Institutions	Academy of Music and the Performing Arts, Vienna, Austria, Lviv Conservatory, Lwów
Alma mater	Academy of Music and the Performing Arts, Vienna
Known for	First Polish twelve-tone composer

Józef Koffler (28 November 1896 – 1944) was a Polish composer, music teacher, musicologist and musical columnist.

He was the first Polish composer living before the Second World War to apply the twelve-tone composition technique (dodecaphony).

He was born on 28 November 1896 in Stryj, Austria–Hungary. He studied from 1914 to 1916 in Lwów and from 1918 to 1924 he studied music at the Academy of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna. His teachers were Paul Graener and Felix Weingartner. From 1928 till 1941 Koffler was professionally active as music teacher in Lwów, teaching at the Lwów Conservatory. Polish exile composer studied in 1920–1923 composition together with Koffler in Lwów.

Koffler was a composer of 20th-century avant-garde Polish music and the first Polish twelve-tone technique composer.

He must have come into contact with Edward Clark, the British conductor, BBC music producer and former student of Arnold Schoenberg, as his "Variations on a Waltz by Johann Strauss", Op. 23 (1935) were dedicated "À mon ami Edward Clark".

When German troops entered the town Koffler was captured with his wife and son and forcibly relocated to the ghetto in Wieliczka (Poland). His further fate, including the date, location and manner of his death are unknown. At the beginning of 1944 he and his family were probably killed by one of the German Einsatzgruppen near Krosno (in southern Poland) where he was hiding after the liquidation of the ghetto in Wieliczka.