1916 at the age of 17. His first year majors were clarinet and conducting, with piano as his minor. The following year he changed his major to piano, with theory as his minor. His teachers there included Otto Weinreich (piano), Sigfrid Karg-Elert (theory), Günther Raphael (counterpoint) and Max Hochkofler (conducting). Fellow students included the Norwegian composer Geirr Tviett, and it is a sign of Berlinski's skills as a pianist that he gave the premiere performance in 1931 of Tveitt's dynamic First Piano Concerto. He graduated in 1932 with an honours degree. In the context of Leipzig's long involvement with European music, the strongest influences at that time on Berlinski's own composition style were J.S. Bach, Gustav Mahler and Max Reger. His initial exposure to Lutheran liturgical music and the organ arose from attending Friday evening concerts at Leipzig's Thomaskirche where he heard repertoire largely centred on the period from J.S. Bach to Reger. Having overheard Berlinski rehearsing Bach's Goldberg Variations on the piano, Karl Straube, then cantor at the Thomaskirche and professor of organ at the Institut der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Landeskirche Sachsen, offered him organ lessons at the institute. But because it was a prerequisite that Berlinski become a Christian to have access to this program, and as he was not prepared to take that step, the idea proceeded no further. Emigration to Paris; further music studies; professional involvement As the National Socialist party gained power in German politics, general restrictions, including their involvement in the arts, were imposed upon the Jews. In 1933, having gained a Polish passport at his father's urging, Berlinski returned to Łódź. However, he found himself disadvantaged by being unable to speak Polish, and he was greatly disheartened by the misery of the Jewish community within which he was living. Finally, when called up for military service, he fled to Paris. He was then joined by Sina Goldfein, a former fellow-student both at school and the Leipzig Conservatory, herself a pianist and singer. They were married in 1934. Soon after arriving in Paris, Berlinski enrolled at the École Normale de Musique and studied composition with Nadia Boulanger and piano with Alfred Cortot. Although he valued Boulanger's training, Berlinski eventually found some of her musical ideas incompatible with his own, discontinued studies with her after two years, and enrolled at the Schola Cantorum of Paris where he studied Jewish liturgical music with the Sephardic synagogue composer Léon