Manuel Rosenthal’s mother had fled from Russia to escape the pogroms, eventually reaching France; however his father was unknown to him and he was brought up by his step-father. Having started to learn to play the violin when he was nine, he entered the Paris Conservatoire as a pupil of Jules Boucherit in 1918. His already-composed Sonatine attracted Boucherit’s attention and it was successfully included in the Société Musicale Indépendante’s centenary concert of 1923, the year in which Rosenthal left the Conservatoire; it was published, and led to him being taught fugue and counterpoint by the organist Jean Huré. Following the death of his step-father, Rosenthal was obliged to support his mother and two sisters, earning his living by composing show songs and playing in café, cinema and theatre bands, as well as in the Lamoureux and Pasdeloup Orchestras. Through an introduction from the pianist Madeleine d’Aleman he was taken on as only the third pupil of Ravel, becoming one of the composer’s closest colleagues: in 1928, Ravel persuaded the Concerts Pasdeloup to mount a concert of Rosenthal’s works, with Rosenthal himself conducting.
In 1934 Rosenthal was appointed by Ingelbrecht as his assistant with the newly created radio orchestra, the Orchestre National de Radio France, a post which he retained until 1939. Meanwhile the previous year had seen the first performance by the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo of what was to be his most popular work, Gaîté Parisienne, drawn from music by Offenbach. Ernest Ansermet later recognised Rosenthal’s musical skills when he said of his orchestral suite Musique de table of 1941, ‘I did not know it was possible to orchestrate better than Ravel.’ With the outbreak of World War II, Rosenthal enlisted as a medical corporal, spent a year as a prisoner of war, was repatriated and joined the Resistance; and in 1944 he became chief conductor of the Orchestre National de Radio France, with whom he championed the music of contemporary composers such as Messiaen, as well as that of his master, Ravel. Rosenthal’s American career commenced in 1948 with his appointment as chief conductor of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. Although this proved to be most successful musically, he was asked to leave his post in 1951 when it was discovered that he was not in fact married to ‘Mme Rosenthal’.
During the ensuing years Rosenthal worked as a guest conductor, frequently directing contemporary works, as well as continuing to compose. He arranged and recorded another Offenbach score, Offenbachiana, to a commission from Remington Records; served as professor of conducting at the Paris Conservatoire between 1962 and 1974; and as chief conductor of the Liège Symphony Orchestra between 1962 and 1967. In 1981 he scored a big success at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, conducting a triple bill of operas by Satie, Poulenc and Ravel, and followed this with Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in Seattle in 1986. A musician of great if at times prickly sensibility, Rosenthal is most well-known for his Offenbach ballet scores: he certainly had the measure of this composer, perceptively commenting that ‘…Offenbach was the only musician clever enough to trap the devil.’
