Manuel Rosenthal was best known in France as a prominent conductor and champion of new music. Throughout the rest of the world, he is remembered for his exuberant ballets and suites based on the Music of Jacques Offenbach. In 1953, he was invited to record his most famous ballet, Gaîté Parisienne, with Berlin’s RIAS Orchestra. A major malfunction of the studio’s tape recording equipment delayed the sessions by two weeks – which Rosenthal took to arrange “Offenbachiana”, his “concerto for orchestra based on the great operetta composer’s theatrical works. Both works were recorded and released by Remington Records, with Rosenthal eliciting an uncanny French sound from the orchestra, yielding definitive statements on these concert favorites. The new remastering by Urlicht AudioVisual presents these landmark sessions in revelatory sound.
