Antal Doráti was a Hungarian conductor who achieved international fame as leader of many great orchestras around the world and for his recordings of the works of Tchaikovsky, Haydn, Stravinsky and particularly Bela Bartók, with whom he had studied and worked. An American citizen following World War II, he conducted opera, ballet and symphony orchestras including the Detroit Symphony where he had his last full-time post as music director from 1977 to 1981.

Born in Budapest to a musical family, he studied at the Liszt Academy with Zoltan Kodály and Bartók and worked at the Budapest Royal Opera, the Dresden Opera and the Munster Opera. He toured the world with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and during World War II he was music director of the American Ballet Theater. He made his American concert debut with the National Symphony in Washington in 1937 and after the war went to work with the Dallas Symphony and then the Minneapolis Symphony. He appeared as guest conductor with the London Symphony and the Philharmonia Hungarica, an ensemble of Hungarian refugees based in what was then West Germany. Their album 'Haydn: The Complete Symphonies' reached number 14 on Billboard's Classical Albums Chart when it was released in 2009. He was named senior conductor of the Royal Philharmonic in England in 1975 and became conductor laureate three years later.

He recorded a great many albums including 'Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker' which went to number 24 on Billboard's Classical Albums Chart in 1993. Other releases include 'Wagner: The Flying Durchman' (1961), 'Dallapiccola; Il Prigioniero' (1975) and 'Haydn: Orlando Paladino' (1977), all of which were nominated as Best Opera Recording in the Grammy Awards with the latter earning a nod as Classical Album of the Year. 'Boulez: Le Soleil Des Eaux/Messiaen: Chronochromie/Koechlin: Les Bandar-Log' (1966), 'Haydn: Symphonies (Complete) Vol. 4 and 5' (1972) and 'Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 65-72 (Vol.1)' (1971) were nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Classical Orchestral Performance with the latter adding a nomination for Classical Album of the Year. Doráti died aged 82 in Switzerland in 1988. In its obituary, the New York Times said he was "a warm, hearty conductor, not so concerned with refined interpretive detail as with vital, sensible statements of the music at hand".

Antal Doráti

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