Rosenthal, Maurycy (EN)

Rosenthal Maurycy, Moriz, *18 December 1862 Lviv, †3 September 1946 New York, Polish pianist. He began his piano lessons at the age of 8. In 1872, he studied at the Franz Josef Gymnasium in Lviv, and from 1872 to 1874 took piano lessons from K. Mikuli. Then, he studied under R. Joseffy in Vienna (1875), and under F. Liszt in Weimar and Rome (1876–1878). As a result of the great success of his debut recital in Vienna (1876), he gave concerts in Poland, Russia, France, and Romania, where he assumed the position of court pianist. In 1878, he stopped performing and devoted himself to studying philosophy at the University of Vienna until 1884. In the years 1888–1889, he made his first United States concert tour (with F. Kreisler), which brought him worldwide fame. He performed many times in Poland. In 1890, he gave concert in Lviv “for the benefit of Galicians afflicted by hunger.” In 1910, he took part in the First Congress of Polish Musicians. In the years: 1901–1902, 1909, 1913, 1915, 1922, 1924, and 1929–30 he appeared in Warsaw at concerts (performing works by Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, Saint-Saëns) and recitals, revealing, among other things “a phenomenal ease in overcoming all technical riddles” (P. Rytel, “Gazeta Warszawska” from 17 November 1929) and “a singing tone, beautiful mezza voce, but also a lot of old-time salon style and signature technique” (K. Stromenger, Gazeta Polska, 17 November 1929). On 13 October 1938, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his American debut, Rosenthal gave a recital at Carnegie Hall in New York, where he settled and became active as a teacher; his students were R. Goldsand and Ch. Rosen, among others. Rosenthal’s discography includes works by Händel, Schubert, Liszt, Albéniz, Ladow, Debussy, his own compositions, including Papillons (HMV, APR, Pearl) and numerous recordings (1929–1937) of Chopin’s works, published by The Piano Library (1999).