From May 1942 onwards and throughout 1943 Joan Manén toured Spain accompanied by the pianist María Teresa Balcells. One of the concerts of this tour was at the Conservatoire of Manresa where, apart from playing the violin, Manén also accompanied the soprano Mercedes Plantada in the performance of several of his own songs. Plantada was a good friend of the composer and had recorded his Canciones populares catalanas some years before. In 1943 another good friend of the violinist, the Andalusian composer Olallo Morales, dedicated his Concerto for violin and orchestra to Joan Manén. Morales had settled in Sweden from a young age and had assisted with Manén’s performances there on several occasions. Manén, in the spirit of reciprocity, dedicated the Capricho nº3 op. A-33 for violin and orchestra, and the Divertimento op. A-32, an adaptation for orchestra of the Fantasia-Sonata op. A-22, to Morales.
In January of 1944 a Spanish newspaper announced the presence of Joan Manén in Paris, just a few months before the liberation of the city by the allied forces. That year the recently created “Orquestra Municipal de Barcelona” performed his Interlude from the opera Heros, conducted by Eduard Toldrà. In 1944 Manén performed in several Spanish localities, including a tribute to Sarasate in Pamplona for the centenary of his birth, as well as several symphonic concerts at “Gran Teatre del Liceu” and “Palau de la Música” in Barcelona ??with the participation of Enric Casals and Enric Ribó as conductors and Rosa Sabater and Antonia Pich Santasusana on the piano.
On the 2nd of May, 1945 at “Coliseum” in Barcelona, ??the Paul Gobé Dance Company with the dancer Yvonne Alexander premiered a ballet composed by Manén especially for Gobé titled El retrato de Dorian Gray, which was performed successfully until 1946. On the 14th of May, a Manén Festival was held at “Palau de la Música” in which the violinist performed his Juventus op. A-5 with the pianist Rosa Sabater and the violinist Juan Alós, his former student. Just a few days later, Manén suffered a serious illness that led him to undergo surgery on several occasions. He endured a prolonged convalescence which forced him to be inactive for over a year. In an interview with the journalist Antonio Losada, Manén explained the following related anecdote: "During my long nights of fever and insomnia I never stopped providing myself with admirable concerts listening to all the music I know. (...) The proof for these exact mental reviews is that fact that I guessed down to the last minute the duration of the three operations I had under local anaesthesia, because during the operation I performed the Mendelssohn Concerto twice. (...) I had no other recourse than playing the violin mentally to kill time: 64 minutes." He returned to the stage on the 4th of October, 1946 at “Palau de la Música”, with the performance of one of his favourite concerts, Max Bruch's Concerto No. 1., as well as conducting works by Byrd and Millet and his own Canción y Estudio op. A-8, performed by Joan Massià on the violin. In November of the same year, the oboist Domingo Segú successfully premiered the Concerto for oboe and orchestra op. A-39 by Manén with the “Orquestra Municipal de Barcelona” conducted by Eduard Toldrà.
Manén inaugurated the year 1947 with the premiere of a new work: his Concerto for cello and orchestra op. A-31, initially dedicated to Pau Casals. As early as 1911, the well-known cellist from El Vendrell had asked Manén to write a work for him, but Manén did not deliver until 1934. Once the Civil War ended Casals was in exile and the premiere of the work was postponed. Manén then decided to pass the work on to another Catalan cellist; Gaspar Cassadó, who immediately promised to perform it once the Second World War was over and on January 5th, 1947, Cassadó indeed premiered the work in Rome accompanied by the “Orchestra dell'Augusteo”, conducted by Antonio Pedrotti.
That same year, the Orfeó Català under Lluís Maria Millet premiered Montanya de Montserrat by Manén and Alicia de Larrocha performed the Symphonic Concerto for piano and orchestra op. A-13 together with the “Orquestra Municipal de Barcelona” conducted by the composer. In 1948 Manén toured Spain, France and Sweden, and he also established a new competition: the Manén Prize of 500 pesetas for the best performance of sautillé articulation by a violinist at the Municipal Conservatoire of Barcelona. On the 15th of June, the Catalan cellist Ricard Boadella and the pianist Antonia Pich Santasusana premiered the Sonata di concerto op. A-42 for cello and piano by Manén in Sabadell and Boadella would perform the Sonata on several concert tours throughout Europe in the following years. In October, 1948, the great flute player Gaston Crunelle premiered the Manén suite Belvedere for flute and string orchestra in France and in 1955 the Catalan flutist Josep Maria Brotons was in charge of making the Spanish premiere.
In 1949 “Radio Barcelona” broadcasted a tribute concert for Manén with the participation of the soprano Mercedes Capsir and the violinist Jaume Llecha, the current winner of the Manén Prize. In 1950 he travelled twice to the United States to perform; two of the concerts took place at the New York Town Hall and were broadcasted by WNYC, the city's public radio. During this visit Manén presented several of his orchestral works, such as the Concerto da camera for violin and string and harp orchestra, the Miniaturas for string orchestra and the Beethoven “Konzertstück” that he had completed years before.
In the last months of 1951 Joan Manén performed in France, including several concerts in Paris, and he conducted the premiere of his symphonic poem Elogio del fandango op. A-43, with the “Köln Philharmoniker”. On the 5th of December, at the “École Normale”, he presented his invention The Invisible Orchestra, which enabled him to perform in his triple role as soloist, composer and conductor at the same time. The invention consisted of recording two of his concerts - the Concerto da camera and the Concerto nº3 Iberico – with himself conducting but without the solo violin part and later, in concert, performing the solo violin part on top of the recording. According to Manén, this invention allowed more freedom for the soloist since he was accompanied by an impeccable orchestra that achieved absolute precision, something which seldom happened in concerts due to the little time available for rehearsals. This invention, created around the same time as the American Music Minus One, won an Ondas Award in 1955.
On the 20th of December, 1952, the composer premiered his fourth opera at “Gran Teatre del Liceu” in Barcelona titled Soledad. The play, based on a libretto written by Manén himself, was set in the time of Goya and included only four characters. At the premiere the four soloists were Lina Richarte, soprano; Inés Rivadeneira, mezzo; Pablo Civil, tenor and Raimundo Torres, baritone. After the opera, his ballet Rosario la Tirana was performed with a choreography created by Juan Magriñà, who also performed as the main dancer together with Rosita Segovia. Both the opera and the ballet were conducted by the composer. The following year Manén performed on several occasions in Paris and made recordings for Radio Nacional de France.
On the 24th of April, 1954, the first steps were taken for constructing the “Auditorium” in Barcelona, which was financed privately by the violinist and supposed to provide a new large-scale concert hall for the city. During that year, Manén’s compositions continued to be performed abroad, for example the Miniaturas for string orchestra in New York or the Elogio del Fandango in Stockholm.
After touring Austria, Italy and Germany, Manén conducted the recording of his own opera Soledad, adapted into French, for a broadcast on “Radio Nacional de France” in Paris during the month of February,1955. He then immediately embarked on a concert tour of Austria with the pianist Hubert Rathgeber, which included a successful recital in the “Brahms Saal” of the “Vienna Musikverein” with works by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Saint-Saëns, Sarasate and Manén. For the remainder of 1955 and the beginning of 1956, he continued to alternate concerts in different Catalan towns, such as Palamós, Figueres or Manresa, with tours of France, Austria and Holland.
1957 was the most intense of Manén’s final years. Already seventy-four years old, Manén toured from the beginning of the year until the month of June in Switzerland, Belgium, Holland and France. On the 27th of March, the Barcelona City Council announced that he had been awarded the Gold Medal for Artistic Merit and a tribute concert in his honour was celebrated on the 7th of June. In that concert, which would his last at “Palau de la Música” in Barcelona, ??the “Orquestra Municipal de Barcelona”, conducted by Eduard Toldrà, performed several orchestral works by the composer and accompanied him in Beethoven's Romanza in G major and the Violin Concerto No. 2 "La Campanella" by Paganini with an orchestral part arranged by Manén. “Ritmo” magazine wrote about the concert, stating that "the audience felt electrified by the indescribable purity of the sound and the wonderful agility of the violinist, for whom the most fearsome technical difficulties are overcome with implausible ease". At the Medal award ceremony, the journalist, composer and musicologist Artur Menéndez Aleixandre, who at that time served as Manén's personal secretary, gave several lectures on the composer, contextualizing him within the history and evolution of Spanish music. In April the violinist was invited by the Permanent Council of Cannes Exhibitions to give an orchestra concert and a recital. On the 25th of September, a three-part concert was held at the “Tívoli Theatre” in Barcelona in which Manén performed his Concerto A-24 among other works, as part of the opening events for the FC Barcelona Stadium.
During that year he gave numerous farewell concerts, accompanied by the pianist Antonia Pich Santasusana, in Madrid (“Teatro de la Zarzuela”), Zaragoza, Huesca and in several Catalan towns: Granollers, Badalona, ??Calella, Olot and Girona.
In 1958 Manén gave his last performances as a violinist - according to “La Vanguardia” Manén made a concert tour of France, Germany and Belgium that year, finalizing a long career of more than 65 years with over 4,000 concerts in Europe and America. During the month of October, he was part of the hiring committee tasked with rejuvenating the Symphony Orchestra of “Gran Teatre del Liceu” and a year later, during the 50th anniversary of the theatre, he was awarded first prize for his composition Festividad.
He was a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando and the Royal Academy of Music of Stockholm. He received many distinctions during his long career, including "Knight of the Royal Order of Carlos III" and "Commander of number of the Civil Order of Alfonso XII".