Antal Doráti

Antal Doráti
Background information
Born	April 9, 1906 Budapest, Hungary
Died	November 13, 1988 (age 82) Gerzensee, Switzerland
Genre(s)	Classical
Occupation(s)	Conductor, pedagogue
Associated acts	BBC Symphony Orchestra Dallas Symphony Orchestra Detroit Symphony Orchestra Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra National Symphony Orchestra

Antal Doráti KBE (April 9, 1906 – November 13, 1988) was a Hungarian-born conductor and composer.

Doráti was born in Budapest, where his father was a violinist with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. He studied at the Franz Liszt Academy with Zoltán Kodály and Leo Weiner for composition and Béla Bartók for piano. He made his conducting debut in 1924 with the Budapest Royal Opera.

He made his first recording with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for the recording label His Master's Voice, which later became RCA Records. Over the course of his career Doráti made over 600 recordings. He was the first conductor to record the complete symphonies of Joseph Haydn, with the Philharmonia Hungarica: an orchestra comprised of Hungarian musicians who fled the Soviet invasion of Hungary.

He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1947.

He became especially well-known for his recordings of Tchaikovsky's music. He was the first conductor to record all three of Tchaikovsky's ballets - Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker - complete. This was in 1954, for Mercury Records, with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (later renamed the Minnesota Orchestra), as part of their famous "Living Presence" series. All three ballets were at first issued separately, but were later re-issued in a 6-LP set. Dorati never re-recorded "Swan Lake", but he did make a stereo recording of "The Sleeping Beauty" (again complete) with the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam for Philips Classics Records, and two complete recordings in stereo of "The Nutcracker", one with the London Symphony Orchestra (again for Mercury), and the other with the Concertgebouw Orchestra for Philips - all this within a span of about twenty-seven years. He also recorded all four of Tchaikovsky's "Orchestral Suites" with the New Philharmonia Orchestra, and he was the first conductor to make a recording of Tchaikovsky's "1812" Overture (featuring the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra) with real cannons, brass band, and church bells, first in mono in 1954 and then in stereo in 1958. He also recorded all six of Tchaikovsky's symphonies with the London Symphony Orchestra. His Mercury recordings have been digitally remastered and issued on CD.

In addition, he made the first stereo recording of Léo Delibes' Coppelia, with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra.

He lived to make digital recordings, for English Decca Records (released in the U.S. on the London label), with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. One of these, the recording of Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, received the coveted French award Grand Prix du Disque.

Career

Doráti held posts as principal conductor of the following orchestras:

• American Ballet Theatre orchestra (1941-1945).
• Dallas Symphony Orchestra (1945-48), practically creating that orchestra from scratch
• Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (1949-60)
• BBC Symphony Orchestra (1963-66), which bid him a fond farewell playing his Symphony in Five Movements and his Madrigal Suite.
• Stockholm Philharmonic (1966-70), with which he recorded his Symphony No. 1 and his Symphony No. 2, "Querela Pacis" on the BIS label. He took that orchestra on its first international tours.
• National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. (1970-77), which he rescued from bankruptcy and a players' strike.
• Detroit Symphony Orchestra (1977-81), restoring them to world-class status in their newly renovated Orchestra Hall.
• Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1975-79)

He conducted the world premiere of Bartók's Viola Concerto (as completed by Tibor Serly) with the Minneapolis Symphony in 1949. He made many recordings, notably of pieces by Bartók and Kodály and the first complete recording of the symphonies of Joseph Haydn, with the Philharmonia Hungarica.

As well as composing original works, he compiled and arranged pieces by Johann Strauss II for the ballet Graduation Ball, as well as Jacques Offenbach's La Belle Hélène and Bluebeard, and Modest Mussorgsky's Fair at Sorotchinsk.

His autobiography, Notes of Seven Decades, was published in 1979. In 1983, Queen Elizabeth II made Doráti an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE). This entitled him to use the post-nominal letters KBE, but not to style himself “Sir Antal Dorati”.

Dorati died at 82 years old in Gerzensee, Switzerland.

External links

• Antal Dorati official website
• Antal Doráti at All Music Guide
• Antal Dorati Centenary Society

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