Karol Rathaus Papers

Karol Rathaus was born on September 16, 1895 in Tarnopol, a town of Polish origin that was at the time part of Austria (and is now part of Ukraine). Rathaus was ethnically Jewish.

Rathaus began to write music by age 7, and composed for orchestra by age 14. After graduation from the Gymnasium, he went to Vienna in 1913 to university and the Academy of Music, where he was a mentee of Franz Schreker.

In 1915, at the outbreak of World War I, Rathaus was drafted into the Austrian Army. He returned to his studies with Shreker in 1919, and remained at the university for another year before following Schreker to the Hochschule Fur Musik in Berlin. Rathaus was still a student when his music was first played publicly and his Opus 2; the First Piano Sonata earned him a ten-year publication contract with Universal Editions. In 1922, he returned to Vienna, where he graduated from university with a Ph. D. in History. Rathaus resided in Berlin from 1922 to 1932, a city that aspired to be Europe’s music capitol. His first major success was in 1924 at the Music Festival in Frankfurt, with Second Symphony. Rathaus went on to write incidental music for plays and film, including Uriel Acosta (1930), a worldwide success presented by the Habimah Players with an orchestral suite, and The Brothers Karamazov (1931), now a classic film. Rathaus was one of the first serious composers to do sound for film. The year before Hitler came to power Rathaus left Germany for Paris, where he lived from 1932 to 1934. He then moved to London, where he wrote Third String Quartet, Second Violin Sonata, and Le Lion Amoureux (1937) for the Ballet Russe. Rathaus left London hand in 1938 crossed the Atlantic for the United States. Rathaus left behind many belongings, including the only existing copies of compositions in manuscript - all of which were destroyed during the London "blitz."

Rathaus was 43 when he arrived in the U.S. in 1938. He first stayed in Hollywood to write a film score, but felt out of place, isolated from music and repelled by commercial pressures. He moved to New York, where he wrote eight more film scores. In 1940, he was appointed to the faculty of Queens College of the City of New York. He occupied the post of Professor of Composition for fourteen years. Rathaus was a beloved and significant member of the Queens College music faculty, helping the department (eventually to become the Aaron Copland School of Music) grow into one of the most distinguished in the country. A building on campus is named after Rathaus, with memorabilia from his music career deposited in the cornerstone of the building.

While at Queens College, Rathaus received notable commissions and performances: Polonaise symphonique (1943), commissioned by Artur Rodzinski and the New York Philharmonic-Symphony; Vision Dramatique (1945), under Dimitri Mitropoulos in New York; Salisbury Cove Overture (1949), written for Vladimir Golschmann and the St. Louis Symphony for its 70th anniversary; and Prelude for Orchestra (1953), commissioned and first performed by the Louisville Orchestra under Robert Whitney. His large-scale choral work, Diapason (1950-51), was commissioned by the Queens College Choral Society, and is based on texts by Dryden and Milton.

In 1952, Rathaus was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera to restore the original version of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov.

During the last years of his life, Rathaus was fighting fatigue and recurrent illness. The String Quartet No. 5 was finished in July 1954, a few months before his death; it was to be his last completed work.

References
Schwarz, Boris. “Karol Rathaus.” The Musical Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 4, 1955, pp. 481–95.