Moriz Rosenthal

This article describes the pianist Moriz Rosenthal; the neurologist is described under Moritz Rosenthal .

Moriz Rosenthal

Moriz Rosenthal (born December 17, 1862 in Lemberg , † September 3, 1946 in New York ; also Moritz Rosenthal and Maurycy Rosenthal ) was a Polish-American pianist .

As the grandchildren of Frédéric Chopin , who had studied with his pupil Karol Mikuli , Rosenthal was certified as having authentic access to the Polish composer's piano works. He himself confirmed that his much admired art of playing legato went back to Chopin himself. From 1876 to 1878 he also had the opportunity to work with Franz Liszt in Weimar and Rome . He worked as court pianist and chamber virtuoso in Vienna, was appointed professor in 1928 and later also worked as a conductor.

Rosenthal's virtuosity was so extraordinary that even the dreaded Viennese critic Pope Eduard Hanslick let himself be carried away to an admiring concert review - and that he was able to reprimand the young Vladimir Horowitz with a condescending bon mot for his thundering octave playing: “He may be an octavian, but not a Caesar . "

Almost as famous for his sharp wit as for his piano playing (as he remarked after a colleague performance of Chopin's minute waltz: "That was the most entertaining quarter of an hour of my life"), Rosenthal represented the now rare type of universalist who spoke seven languages, a degree the philosophy faculty and had impressive knowledge of medicine, chemistry and philosophy. He was also a brilliant chess player.

In 1936 Moriz Rosenthal had to emigrate to the USA as a Jew. From 1939 he taught in his own piano school in New York.

The recordings available from him (including Chopin's 1st piano concerto, concert paraphrase on Johann Strauss ' “ On the beautiful blue Danube ”) were recorded by a man in the seventies and indeed show a high touch culture and a special shaping of the individual tone (especially in Chopin's waltz op. 64 No. 2), but no longer the technical "infallibility" of the young Rosenthal.

literature

• School of advanced piano playing: technical studies up to the highest level (School of modern pianoforte virtuosity) . Edited by Moriz Rosenthal and Ludvig Schytte . Berlin, around 1890.

Web links

Commons : Moriz Rosenthal  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Single receipts

1. ↑ Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians 1933-1945, CD-ROM, Auprés des Zombry 2004
2. ↑ Fred K. Prieberg: Handbook of German Musicians 1933-1945, CD-ROM, Auprés des Zombry 2004