Sternberg's works in the 1920s and 1930s were
expressionistic in style and reflect the influences of
Hindemith and
Schoenberg. He also incorporated traditional Jewish musical idioms into his use of dense
polyphonic textures. Examples of this can be seen in his salient use of the
augmented 2nd and cantillation motifs in the
piano cycle
Visions from the East, a programmatic work concerning the
Jews of
Eastern Europe, and in his
String Quartet no.1, where he quotes both a
Yiddish song,
Bei a teich (‘The River’), and the formula for the prayer
Shema Yisrael. In Berlin, Sternberg received praise for his compositions and many of his pieces were performed by leading ensembles and performers in that city. His
String Quartet no.2 was performed by the
Amar Quartet and
Yishtabakh (‘Praise Ye’) by the
Berlin Philharmonic. In 1929 he composed
Yishtabakh, a work for Baritone soloist, SATB
chorus, and
chamber orchestra. The work was awarded the
Engel Prize in 1946; an award Sternberg earned again in 1960. Sternberg found it difficult to overcome the trauma of displacement from his German heritage and never felt entirely comfortable in Israel. He was never offered a permanent position at the
Palestine Conservatory or the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, although he occasionally taught there as a guest lecturer. This advocacy for an individual style stood at odds with many of his colleagues' quest for a distinctly national style. As a result, Sternberg's works do not reflect the simplicity of musical compositions in Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s. For example, his large-scale set of symphonic variations
Yosef ve′Ehav (‘Joseph and his Brethren’, 1939) are dominated by strict contrapuntal devices which include complex
fugues. After 1940, Sternberg frequently turned back to earlier scores, revising many and using material from others for new compositions. Memorable works from the 1940s and 1950s are his
vocal music works. Although he composed and arranged many Israeli
folk songs, his treatment of the folk idiom reveals the strong influence of
Fritz Jöde's choral project and of the
Gebrauchsmusik of Hindemith rather than that of the predominating folk ideology of searching for inspiration in
Arabic and
Mediterranean songs. For example, Sternberg's arrangement of
Hora kuma (‘Rise up, Brother’) by Shalom Postolsky is a set of six variations for seven-part chorus displaying contrapuntal and canonic textures, while his choral song
Ima Adama (‘Mother Earth’) features richly
chromatic and
modal harmony. Sternberg's compositional output includes 2
string quartets, 6 orchestral works, several works for piano, works for chorus and orchestra, works for solo singer and orchestra, and numerous songs and folksong arrangements. He also wrote incidental music for the play
Amcha (Your People) by S. Aleichem in 1936 and two operas,
Dr. Doolittle (1939 Jerusalem) and
Pacificia, the Friendly Island (1974). Most of his compositions are part of the collection at the Archives of Israeli Music at
Tel Aviv University. ==Awards and recognition==