Manuel Rosenthal (18 June 1904 – 5 June 2003) was a Frenchcomposer andconductor who held leading positions with musical organizations in France and the United States. He was friends with many contemporary composers, and despite a considerable list of compositions is mostly remembered for having orchestrated the popular ballet scoreGaîté Parisienne from piano scores of Offenbach operettas, and for his recordings as a conductor.
Rosenthal was born in Paris to Anna Devorsosky, of Russian-Jewish descent, and a French father he never met.[1] His surname was taken from his stepfather, Bernard Rosenthal.
He started his musical studies on violin at age 6, which he played in cafés and cinemas after his stepfather's death in 1918 to support his mother and sisters.[2][3] In 1920, he entered theConservatoire in Paris but eventually left it after failing to win an expected first prize.[1] In addition to continuing his violin studies with Alterman andJules Boucherit and playing in theatre and cinema bands, he also studied composition. Around this time he metLéo Sir, inventor of string instruments known as the dixtuor, and was persuaded to play thesursoprano (a 4th higher than the violin) and find composers to write for this new medium. Through this Rosenthal met eminent young Parisian composers of whomDarius Milhaud andArthur Honegger were the most distinguished, and also contributed his own music to a recital in Paris in October 1921.[4]
HisSonatine for two violins and piano, composed for a sight-reading examination, was acclaimed after its performance at the 99th concert of theSociété musicale indépendante in Paris at the end of October 1924, attended by bothNadia Boulanger andAlexis Roland-Manuel. After a stint in the military he became a student ofMaurice Ravel, seeing him once or twice a month[5] while also having lessons in counterpoint and fugue fromJean Huré.[4] while continuing to play violin in theMoulin Rouge andCasino de Paris café orchestras. Ravel's encouragement ultimately led to his winning thePrix Blumenthal (worth 20,000 francs) in 1928.[6] Ravel lobbied the directors of theOpéra-Comique to get Rosenthal's one-act operaRayon des soieries performed there in June 1930.[4] He also arranged for Rosenthal's conducting debut, at a concert composed of Rosenthal's own music in 1928.[3]
His conducting career began in earnest in 1934, when he became percussionist and assistant conductor of theOrchestre National de France, toDésiré-Émile Inghelbrecht. In 1936,Georges Mandel invited him to conduct the Orchestre de Radio PTT. As his fame as a conductor grew, he was attacked inAction Française in 1937 byLucien Rebatet, who demanded his expulsion from his radio conductorship. In the same yearSerge Koussevitzky, in Paris during theExposition, invited Rosenthal to become assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony under him – an offer reiterated after a Salle Pleyel concert on the eve of war in 1939.[7] After Ravel's death in 1937, and following the success ofGaîté Parisienne, he became a close colleague ofIgor Stravinsky.[7]
Rosenthal's musical career was interrupted by World War II when, as a corporal in the 300th infantry regiment stationed in 1939 in Alsace near the Rhine, he was taken prisoner by the Germans in May 1940. Still musically active even as a POW, he not only organized concerts in the camp he was interned in but even composed an operetta based on a play byGeorges Courteline. Included in a POW exchange, he was sent back to theoccupied zone, arrived back in Paris in March 1941 and escaped to Marseille in theZone libre (free zone) with the help ofRoland-Manuel. But he was arrested inBesançon in September 1941 while trying to see his son and sentenced to six months forced labor. With the assistance of a German officer, however, he got the necessary papers to escape back to Marseille. Later in 1942, he returned to Paris and courageously joined the Resistance, working with eminent musical colleaguesDésormière,Durey,Delvincourt,Charles Munch and others.[7]
Upon theliberation in 1944, he returned to theOrchestre National de France to become their principal conductor, a post he held until 1947. The first concert consisted of works from each of the Allied countries, including theHymne à la Justice byMagnard. He made sure a wide range of contemporary music was played, and the first season included a complete Stravinsky cycle.[7] In his final year with the orchestra, he brought it to England to joinSir Thomas Beecham and theRoyal Philharmonic in a concert organized byJack Hylton that filled theHarringay Arena with 13,500 listeners.[8]
In early 1946, Rosenthal's first conductorship in the USA was with theSt. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Having accepted the post of composer-in-residence at theCollege of Puget Sound, he was invited to become music director of theSeattle Symphony, which he conducted from 1948–1951 while undertaking guest engagements inSan Francisco andBuenos Aires. He then went toAlgiers to conduct there and inTunis during the winter of 1952-53.[7]
He was music director of theOrchestre Symphonique de Liège from 1964-1967, and professor of conducting at the Paris Conservatoire from 1962 to 1974, where he established a more demanding schedule for his students, who includedYan Pascal Tortelier,Eliahu Inbal, Jacques Mercier,Marc Soustrot andJean-Claude Casadesus.[7] He conducted some of the first modern performances ofJean-Philippe Rameau'sZoroastre, at theGrand Théâtre de Bordeaux and the Opéra-Comique in 1964. TheBBC inManchester invited him to conduct an opera of his choice in 1973, which turned out to beEmmanuel Chabrier'sLe roi malgré lui, for which he chose a French cast.[1]
In February 1981, Rosenthal made his debut at theMetropolitan Opera New York in a mixed-bill of 20th century French stage works, returning in 1983 forFrancis Poulenc's 1957 operatic masterpieceDialogues des carmélites and for further appearances in 1986-87.[9] He returned to Seattle in 1986 to conductRichard Wagner'sRing cycle at theSeattle Opera.[10]
He conducted the first performance ofClaude Debussy's radical 1902 operatic masterpiecePelléas et Mélisande in Russia, in Moscow in 1988, and later that year premiered the same work in Caracas, Venezuela. In 1992, he conducted a production ofPadmâvatî byAlbert Roussel at the Opera Bastille.[7]
Rosenthal composed prolifically in many classical genres, including operas, operettas, ballets, 13 works for orchestra, choral works both with orchestra anda cappella, works for solo voice and orchestra, chamber music, and music for voice and piano as well as for solo piano.[2][3] The wide variety of his work, in terms of both genre and tone, reflects his refusal to accept the stylistic compartmentalization prevalent in Paris in the1920s.[11]
His reputation as a composer was sealed in France withJeanne d'Arc, first performed in 1936, although this was followed by a production of the light-hearted one-act operettaLa Poule Noire of 1937.[4]
His best-known compositional work was not his own, the 1938 balletGaîté Parisienne orchestrated from operetta selections byJacques Offenbach (copied manually by assistants who chose them from piano scores they speed-read in theHarvard University music library, the most complete repository of Offenbach scores known at that time). The commission byLéonide Massine was originally entrusted toRoger Désormière, but for lack of time Désormière asked his friend Rosenthal to take over the project. Rosenthal was initially reluctant, but fulfilled the commission. Massine rejected the score but, after arbitration byIgor Stravinsky, finally accepted the work and choreographed the ballet, which turned out to be a major success.[2] He also orchestrated works byFederico Mompou and Ravel.[11]
He was a fluent composer of choral and sacred works, such asLa Pietà d'Avignon (1943),Trois pièces liturgiques (1944) andMissa Deo gratias (1953).[11] Parts of hisSaint François d'Assise may have influencedOlivier Messiaen,[11] who wrotean extensive opera on the same subject.
In 1965 his serious operaHop, Signor! was a disappointment in Toulouse and at theOpéra-Comique.
Rosenthal was married twice. His first marriage was to a chorus girl, Mlle. Troussier, in 1927. He had begun a relationship with soprano Claudine Verneuil while still married to his first wife, but during his tenure in Seattle presented Claudine as his wife even though he had not divorced Troussier. His failure to declare Verneuil's true status led to his detention for six weeks onEllis Island on the way back to Seattle in October 1951,[7] and his Seattle contract was terminated after the discovery of his first marriage. In 1952, he finally obtained a divorce and married Verneuil. He had two sons, Alain born in 1933 and Clément in 1956.[3][7]
He was made a Chevalier of theLégion d'honneur in 1961 and a Commandeur in 1991.[7]
A convert toRoman Catholicism,[11] in 1999 he published a small book, 'Crescendo vers Dieu',[13] in which he examined the religious beliefs that were woven into his life story.
He died in Paris, just short of his 99th birthday.
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