Joseph Rosenstock, born in Kraków in 1895, was a child prodigy on the piano. In 1912, he began studying composition in Vienna under Franz Schreker, for whom he served as assistant conductor. He became General Music Director first in Darmstadt, then in Wiesbaden in 1927 and in Mannheim in 1930. This promising career came to an end in 1933 with the Nazis’ rise to power, who ousted the ‘non-Aryan’ conductor from office. Rosenstock initially rebuilt his life at the Jewish Cultural Association in Berlin. From 1936, he carried out pioneering work in Tokyo as head of the New Symphony Orchestra, before going on to work in the USA after the war, for example as director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Vladimir Stoupel performs, amongst other works, Rosenstock’s Piano Sonata, Op. 3. Albrecht Dümling talks to Ralf Eisinger about the composer.