Conductor Rosenstock Dies at 90

Joseph Rosenstock, a child prodigy forced by a World War I injury to abandon the piano in favor of the podium, is dead at age 90.

Rosenstock, whose musical career spanned seven decades and won him accolades from critics on three continents, died Thursday at his home in New York City.

He will probably be best remembered as the conductor of the German wing at the Metropolitan Opera and general manager and director of the New York City Opera. But he also was revered in Germany and Japan.

Born in Krakow, Poland, Rosenstock attended the Vienna Conservatory and was concertizing in Vienna and Berlin before he was a teen-ager. He served with the Austrian army in World War I and suffered an injury to his left hand that limited his playing. He turned to conducting after the war.