Karol Rathaus (1895-1954) was a Polish-born composer and teacher whose career took him through Vienna, Berlin, Paris, London and the United States. He studied with Franz Schreker and became part of the Central European modernist generation between the wars.

His works include orchestral music, chamber pieces, piano music, film scores and stage works. After emigrating to America, he taught at Queens College in New York.

Rathaus’s music is dramatic, tightly argued and often darkly coloured, with roots in late Romanticism and early modernism. It carries the intensity of a displaced European musical world.

His reputation has been revived gradually as exile composers have received renewed attention. Rathaus’s music speaks from a hard road, but with craft and conviction intact.