Antal Dorati

Antal Dorati , 1906-88, Hungarian-American conductor, b. Budapest. Dorati studied with Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók. He made his conducting debut at 18 at the Budapest Opera. His first appearance in the United States was with the National Symphony in 1937. Dorati was the conductor of the Dallas (1945-48), Minneapolis (1949-60), and British Broadcasting Corporation (1963-66) symphonies, the Stockholm Philharmonic (1966-70), the National Symphony in Washington, D.C. (1970-77), the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (1977-81), and, simultaneously, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London (1975-79). Dorati subordinated his composing to conducting. Of his many recordings, his major achievement was a complete recording of all of Haydn's symphonies.

BBC Symphony Orchestra. Chief orch. of the BBC, formed 1930 with 114 (later 119) players on permanent contract. Has given f.ps. of many works by Brit. composers. Guest conds. have incl. the world's leading exponents, notably Toscanini. Chief conds. since inception: Adrian Boult 1931–50; Malcolm Sargent 1950–7; Rudolf Schwarz 1957–62; Antal Dorati 1962–6; Colin Davis 1967–71; Pierre Boulez 1971–5; Rudolf Kempe 1975–6; Gennady Rozhdestvensky 1978–81; John Pritchard 1981–9; Andrew Davis 1989–2000; Leonard Slatkin from 2000. Other BBC sym. orchs. are the Philharmonic (based in Manchester), Scottish (based in Glasgow), and Welsh (based in Cardiff and known from 1993 as BBC National Orchestra of Wales). The BBC Symphony Chorus was formed 1928 as National Chorus (at its 1st concert, 23 Nov. 1928, Bantock cond. f.p. of his Pilgrim's Progress). Name changed to BBC Chorus 1932, to BBC Choral Society 1935, to present title 1977. Up to 1976, ch. master was dir. of BBC Singers, but in that year separate appointment ( Brian Wright) was made.