Albi Rosenthal

Albrecht Gabriel Rosenthal (5 October 1914 – 3 August 2004), called Albi, was a distinguished music scholar and antiquarian bookseller. He played an important role in Mozart scholarship in the 20th century. An anonymous obituarist for The Times wrote, "For half a century Albi (Albrecht) Rosenthal was probably the best known and most respected representative of his profession not only in this country but internationally."

Family background and upbringing He was born in Munich into a family that was already experienced and successful in the trade of selling rare books. His great-grandfather Joseph Rosenthal was a lover of old books who ran an arts and antique shop. His great-uncle Ludwig Rosenthal (1840–1928) became a successful antiquarian bookseller; Ludwig's younger brother Jacques Rosenthal (1854–1937), Albi's grandfather, started out working for Ludwig and by 1895 had his own business. Jacques' son (1889–1981), Albi's father, earned a Ph.D. in art history and published extensively in this field. Working for the family business, he opened branches of Jacques' firm in Berlin and Lugano.

Rosenthal later (1966) wrote of the trade of antiquarian bookselling and how, during the time of his ancestors in Germany, it had become far more scholarly and systematic in character:

Not only the phenomenal spread of scholarship and bibliographical research, but also the demands and exigencies of a more methodical, 'professional' type of specialist collector and librarian are reflected in the personalities of the successful international booksellers at the turn of the [20th] century. The term 'wissenschaftliches Antiquariat'—'wissenschaftlich' meaning 'scholarly' rather than 'scientific'—became the hallmark of the leading firms in Germany. Their catalogues often included descriptions by eminent scholars of books and MSS. [manuscripts], and several of the antiquarian booksellers themselves became recognised authorities in their special fields.

This description also characterizes the scholar-merchant role that Rosenthal eventually found in this field.

Rosenthal described his father Erwin as "a distinguished art historian and a wonderful teacher". He reminisced: "During my schooldays at the Wilhelmsgymnasium Not all Rosenthals escaped; three of Erwin's cousins died in the Theresienstadt Ghetto (see Ludwig Rosenthal).

Albi Rosenthal, who left Germany at just the age when he might have begun a university education, nonetheless established himself as a scholar without receiving an academic degree of any sort. When he arrived in London at age 18, he was already fairly knowledgeable about art history from his father's training. about "a discovery I had made about a Dürer watercolour". In the long run, the shop (which later moved to Broad Street) proved inessential, and was eventually abandoned, as much of the business was for export; perhaps more important was the preparation of catalogues explaining to buyers what was available.

Scholarship Among Albi Rosenthal's contributions to scholarship was his co-editorship (with Alan Tyson) of Mozart's personal catalog of works. The edition achieved a perhaps-surprising level of scholarly rigor in reproducing, at Rosenthal's insistence, the entire sequence of near-identical blank pages that were left behind when Mozart died in 1791. Rosenthal was the first to notice that Felix Mendelssohn had actually written more than one violin concerto. In addition to the celebrated concerto of 1844, Mendelssohn also was the composer of a concerto for violin and string orchestra, a work from his childhood; i.e. 1822. Rosenthal was instrumental in making the manuscript of this concerto available to the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who produced a published edition and attempted (not entirely successfully) to restore it to the mainstream repertoire. Rosenthal's experience with manuscripts led him to develop the ability to spot forged material, and he remarked to Sheila Markham that "I have unmasked quite a few forgeries in my time."

Honours Two Festschriften were published in honour of Albi Rosenthal, marking his 70th and 80th birthdays. In 1979 he was awarded an honorary degree from Oxford University. As Rosenthal noted this was especially meaningful to him in that the circumstances of his life had prevented him from getting any sort of degree before.

Family life In 1947 Rosenthal married Maud Levy, who was the daughter of Oscar Levy, a distinguished Nietzsche scholar. The couple had two sons and two daughters. One of the sons was Jim Rosenthal, who became a well-known sportscaster and the father of actor Tom Rosenthal.

Rosenthal died in Oxford in 2004, aged 89.