Pierre Monteux
Encyclopedia
Pierre Monteux was an orchestra conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

. Born in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Monteux later became an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 citizen.

Life and career

Monteux was born in Paris in 1875. His family was descended from Sephardi Jews
Sephardi Jews
Sephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and...

 who came to France in the wake of the Spanish Inquisition
Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...

. He studied violin from an early age, entering the Paris Conservatoire at the age of nine. He became a proficient violinist, good enough to share the Conservatoire's violin prize in 1896 with Jacques Thibaud
Jacques Thibaud
Jacques Thibaud was a French violinist.Thibaud was born in Bordeaux and studied the violin with his father before entering the Paris Conservatoire at the age of thirteen. In 1896 he jointly won the conservatory's violin prize with Pierre Monteux...

. In his spare time he also played at the Folies Bergères
Folies Bergères
The Folies Bergère established in 1869 in Paris, France, is a music hall which was at the height of its fame and popularity from the 1890s through the 1920s. the institution is still in business.-History:...

. He later took up the viola studying with Théophile Laforge
Théophile Laforge
Théophile Édouard Laforge was a French violist and first professor of viola at the Conservatoire de Paris....

 and played in the Geloso Quartet which played one of Brahms's
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

 string quartets in a private performance for the composer and in the orchestra of the Opéra-Comique
Opéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...

, leading the viola section in the première of Debussy's
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

 opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

, Pelléas et Mélisande
Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)
Pelléas et Mélisande is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande...

 in 1902.

In 1910, Monteux took a conducting post at the Dieppe casino. The next year, 1911, he became conductor of Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...

's ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

 company, the Ballets Russes
Ballets Russes
The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company from Russia which performed between 1909 and 1929 in many countries. Directed by Sergei Diaghilev, it is regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century. Many of its dancers originated from the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg...

. In this capacity he conducted the premières of Stravinsky's
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

 Petrushka
Petrushka
Petrouchka or Petrushka is a ballet with music by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, composed in 1910–11 and revised in 1947....

 (1911) and The Rite of Spring
The Rite of Spring
The Rite of Spring, original French title Le sacre du printemps , is a ballet with music by Igor Stravinsky; choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky; and concept, set design and costumes by Nicholas Roerich...

 (1913) – with its famous riot – as well as Debussy's Jeux
Jeux
Jeux is the last work for orchestra written by Claude Debussy. Described as a "poème dansé" , it was originally intended to accompany a ballet, and was written for the Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev to choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky. Debussy initially objected to the scenario, but...

 (1913) and Ravel's
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

 Daphnis et Chloé
Daphnis et Chloé
Daphnis et Chloé is a ballet with music by Maurice Ravel. Ravel described it as a "symphonie choréographique" . The scenario was adapted by Michel Fokine from an eponymous romance by the Greek writer Longus thought to date from around the 2nd century AD...

 (1912). This established the course of his career, and for the rest of his life he was noted particularly for his interpretations of Russian and French music.

With the outbreak of World War I, Monteux was called up for military service, but was discharged in 1916, and travelled to the United States. There he took charge of the French repertoire at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

 in New York City from 1917 to 1919. He also conducted the United States premières of Rimsky-Korsakov's
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...

 opera The Golden Cockerel
The Golden Cockerel
The Golden Cockerel is an opera in three acts, with short prologue and even shorter epilogue, by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Its libretto, by Vladimir Belsky, derives from Alexander Pushkin's 1834 poem The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, which in turn is based on two chapters of Tales of the Alhambra by...

 and Henri Rabaud
Henri Rabaud
Henri Rabaud was a French conductor and composer, who held important posts in the French musical establishment and upheld mainly conservative trends in French music in the first half of the twentieth century....

's Mârouf, savetier du Caire
Mârouf, savetier du Caire
Mârouf, savetier du Caire is an opéra comique by the French composer Henri Rabaud. The libretto, by Lucien Nepoty, is based on a tale from the Arabian Nights. Mârouf was first performed at the Opéra-Comique, Paris, on 15 May 1914. The premiere was a great success and Mârouf became Rabaud's most...

 at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

.

He then moved to the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...

 (1919-1924). He had a major effect on the Boston ensemble's sound, and was able to fashion the orchestra as he pleased after a strike
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...

 led to thirty of its members leaving. He also introduced a number of new works in Boston, notably works by French composers. Monteux in 1924 conducted the orchestra in the New York première of The Rite of Spring, a performance which included a "galvanized" 15-year-old Elliott Carter
Elliott Carter
Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...

 in the audience, according to a 2008 report. (Carter was again in attendance, on the occasion of his 100th birthday in Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 in 2008 when the orchestra, now under the baton of James Levine
James Levine
James Lawrence Levine is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and former music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Levine's first performance conducting the Metropolitan Opera was on June 5, 1971, and as of May 2011 he has...

, again performed the Stravinsky piece.)

In 1924, Monteux also began an association with the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, serving as "first conductor" ("eerste dirigent") alongside Willem Mengelberg
Willem Mengelberg
Joseph Willem Mengelberg was a Dutch conductor, famous for his performances of Mahler and Strauss with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.- Biography :...

. In 1929, he was entrusted the direction of the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris
Orchestre Symphonique de Paris
The Orchestra Symphonique de Paris was an orchestra active in Paris from 1928 to 1939.The orchestra was co-founded by Ernest Ansermet, Louis Fourestier and Alfred Cortot and gave its first concert on 19 October 1928 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.The financial support for the orchestra came...

, which he conducted until 1935.

Monteux then returned to the United States, and worked with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra from 1935 to 1952. He began recording with the orchestra for RCA Victor in 1941 and made numerous discs in San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House for the next 11 years. In 1943, he founded The Pierre Monteux School
Pierre Monteux School
The Pierre Monteux School for conductors and orchestra musicians, founded by the famous conductor Pierre Monteux, is a 6-week summer orchestra program located in Hancock, Maine. After Monteux's death, Maestro Charles Bruck took over leadership of the school. His protege, Michael Jinbo, is the...

 for Conductors and Orchestra Musicians, which is in Hancock, Maine
Hancock, Maine
Hancock is a town in Hancock County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,147 at the 2000 census. Located on the mainland at the head of Frenchman Bay, Hancock has commanding views of Mount Desert Island.-History:...

, where Monteux was then living; Hancock was the childhood home of his third wife, Doris Hodgkins Monteux (she referred to herself as his Eroica). There he taught such future conductors as Anshel Brusilow
Anshel Brusilow
Anshel Brusilow is an American conductor and violinist.Anshel Brusilow began his violin study at the age of five and entered the Curtis Institute of Music when he was eleven. He attended the Philadelphia Musical Academy and at sixteen was the youngest conducting student ever accepted by Pierre...

, Lorin Maazel
Lorin Maazel
Lorin Varencove Maazel is an American conductor, violinist and composer.- Early life :Maazel was born to Jewish-American parents in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France and brought up in the United States, primarily at his parents' home in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood. His father, Lincoln Maazel , was...

, Neville Marriner
Neville Marriner
Sir Neville Marriner is an English conductor and violinist.-Biography:Marriner was born in Lincoln and studied at the Royal College of Music and the Paris Conservatoire. He played the violin in the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Martin String Quartet and London Symphony Orchestra, playing with the...

, André Previn
André Previn
André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...

, Werner Torkanowsky
Werner Torkanowsky
Werner Torkanowsky was a successful German conductor in both the concert hall and opera house....

 and David Zinman
David Zinman
David Zinman is an American conductor and violinist.After early violin studies at the Oberlin Conservatory, Zinman studied theory and composition at the University of Minnesota and took up conducting at Tanglewood...

. In 1946, he became a United States citizen. He made a nostalgic return to San Francisco in 1960 to guest conduct the orchestra and to record Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

's Siegfried Idyll
Siegfried Idyll
The Siegfried Idyll by Richard Wagner is a symphonic poem for chamber orchestra, lasting approximately twenty minutes.-Background:Wagner composed the Siegfried Idyll as a birthday present to his second wife, Cosima, after the birth of their son Siegfried in 1869...

 and Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

's Death and Transfiguration for RCA Victor, the only stereophonic recordings he made with his former orchestra.

In 1951, Monteux renewed his association with the Boston Symphony as a regular guest conductor. He conducted it in Boston, at Tanglewood, and on a transcontinental tour and on two tours to Europe. Monteux also recorded with the Boston Symphony for RCA Victor. He continued to conduct the Boston Symphony until his death in 1964.

From 1961 to 1964 he was principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...

. He was 86 when he was invited to take the post, and he famously accepted on condition that he had a 25-year contract, with a 25-year option of renewal. With the LSO Monteux gave the 50th anniversary performance of The Rite of Spring, at the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....

, London, in the presence of the composer. In his last studio sessions, for Philips Records
Philips Records
Philips Records is a record label that was founded by Dutch electronics company Philips. It was started by "Philips Phonographische Industrie" in 1950. Recordings were made with popular artists of various nationalities and also with classical artists from Germany, France and Holland. Philips also...

 in 1964, Monteux recorded a disc with the LSO and his son, the flautist
Flautist
A flautist or flutist is a musician who plays an instrument in the flute family. See List of flautists.The choice of "flautist" versus "flutist" is the source of dispute among players of the instrument...

 Claude Monteux
Claude Monteux
Claude Monteux is an American flutist and conductor.-Career:As a flutist Claude Monteux played under the batons of Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter, Thomas Beecham, Leopold Stokowski, Pablo Casals, Igor Stravinsky, and his father Pierre Monteux...

, the only gramophone recording Pierre and Claude made together.

Pierre Monteux died in Hancock in 1964.

Musical style

Monteux observed, 'Our principal work is to keep the orchestra together and carry out the composer's instructions, not to be sartorial models, cause dowagers to swoon, or distract audiences by our "interpretation"'. He advised the young Previn that when orchestras are playing well the conductor should not interfere with them. 'His approach to all music is that of the master-craftsman,' according to an approving critic in 1957. The record producer John Culshaw
John Culshaw
John Royds Culshaw OBE was a pioneering English classical record producer for Decca Records. He recorded a wide range of music, but is best known for masterminding the first studio recording of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, begun in 1958.Largely self-educated musically, Culshaw worked for...

 described Monteux as 'that rarest of beings — a conductor who was loved by his orchestras' and said that 'to call him a legend would be to understate the case.' Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...

 observed that Monteux had the best baton technique he had ever seen.

Recordings

Monteux made a large number of recordings throughout his career. He himself claimed to dislike them, maintaining that they lacked the spontaneity of live performances. However, some surviving live performances of Monteux conducting the San Francisco Symphony, taken from recordings of the NBC radio broadcast The Standard Hour
The Standard Hour
The Standard Hour was a weekly radio broadcast by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Opera carried on NBC radio stations on Sundays at 8:30 p.m. Pacific time. Like The Standard School Broadcast, the program was sponsored by Standard Oil of California...

, and videotaped telecasts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra from WGBH
WGBH-TV
WGBH-TV, channel 2, is a non-commercial educational public television station located in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. WGBH-TV is a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service , and produces more than two-thirds of PBS's national prime time television programming...

 and the Chicago Symphony from the syndicated Music for Chicago programs demonstrate his abilities in actual concerts. His first, isolated recording was playing the viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...

 in "Plus blanche que la blanche hermine" from Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....

 by Meyerbeer in 1903 for Pathé
Pathé Records
Pathé Records was a France-based international record label and producer of phonographs, active from the 1890s through the 1930s.- Early years :...

 with the tenor Albert Vaguet.

Many of his recordings have remained in the catalogues for decades, notably his RCA recordings with the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...

 and Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...

s, Decca recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
The Vienna Philharmonic is an orchestra in Austria, regularly considered one of the finest in the world....

 and his Philips recordings with the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...

. Monteux's recordings include:

Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

  • Concerto for two violins BWV 1043, Soloists: Yehudi Menuhin
    Yehudi Menuhin
    Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...

    , Georges Enesco
    George Enescu
    George Enescu was a Romanian composer, violinist, pianist, conductor and teacher.-Biography:Enescu was born in the village of Liveni , Dorohoi County at the time, today Botoşani County. He showed musical talent from early in his childhood. A child prodigy, Enescu created his first musical...

     (Orchestre Symphonique de Paris)
  • Suite No. 2 in B minor, Soloist: Claude Monteux (London Symphony Orchestra)

Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

  • Symphonies No. 1, 3, 6 and 8 (Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra)
  • Symphonies No. 2 and 4 (North German Radio Symphony Orchestra)
  • Symphonies No. 2 and 8 (San Francisco Symphony Orchestra)
  • Symphonies No. 2, 4, 5, 7 and 9 (London Symphony Orchestra)
  • Symphony No 3
    Symphony No. 3 (Beethoven)
    Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E flat major , also known as the Eroica , is a landmark musical work marking the full arrival of the composer's "middle-period," a series of unprecedented large scale works of emotional depth and structural rigor.The symphony is widely regarded as a mature...

     (Concertgebouw Orchestra)
  • Symphony No. 4 (San Francisco Symphony Orchestra)
  • Overtures: Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus (North German Radio Symphony Orchestra), The Ruins of Athens
    The Ruins of Athens
    The Ruins of Athens , Opus 113, is a set of incidental music written in 1811 by Ludwig van Beethoven. The music was written to accompany the play of the same name by August von Kotzebue, for the dedication of a new theatre at Pest....

     (San Francisco Symphony Orchestra), Fidelio, Egmont, King Stephan (LSO)

Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...

  • Symphonie fantastique
    Symphonie Fantastique
    Symphonie Fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un Artiste...en cinq parties , Op. 14, is a program symphony written by the French composer Hector Berlioz in 1830. It is one of the most important and representative pieces of the early Romantic period, and is still very popular with concert audiences...

     (Orchestre symphonique de Paris; San Francisco Symphony Orchestra [twice]; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra; North German Radio Symphony Orchestra)
  • Roméo et Juliette
    Roméo et Juliette
    Roméo et Juliette is an opéra in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. It was first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique , Paris on 27 April 1867...

     (London Symphony Orchestra)

Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

  • Symphony No. 2
    Symphony No. 2 (Brahms)
    The Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73, was composed by Johannes Brahms in the summer of 1877 during a visit to Pörtschach am Wörthersee, a town in the Austrian province of Carinthia. Its composition was brief in comparison with the fifteen years it took Brahms to complete his First Symphony...

     (San Francisco Symphony Orchestra [twice]; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra; London Symphony Orchestra)
  • Piano Concerto No 1
    Piano Concerto No. 1 (Brahms)
    The Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15, is a work for piano and orchestra composed by Johannes Brahms in 1858. The composer gave the work's public debut in Hanover, Germany, the following year.-Form:...

    , Soloist: Julius Katchen
    Julius Katchen
    Julius Katchen was an American concert pianist, possibly best known for his recordings of Johannes Brahms's solo piano compositions.-Early career:...

     (London Symphony Orchestra)
  • Variations on the St Anthony Chorale (London Symphony Orchestra)
  • Violin Concerto in D major, op. 77
    Violin Concerto (Brahms)
    Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77 is a violin concerto in three movements composed by Johannes Brahms in 1878 and dedicated to his friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim...

    , Soloist: Henryk Szeryng
    Henryk Szeryng
    Henryk Szeryng was a Polish violinist.-Early years:He was born in Żelazowa Wola, Poland on 22 September 1918 into a wealthy family....

     (London Symphony Orchestra)
  • Tragic and Academic Festival Overtures (London Symphony Orchestra)

Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

  • La mer
    La Mer (Debussy)
    La mer, trois esquisses symphoniques pour orchestre , or simply La mer , is an orchestral composition by the French composer Claude Debussy. It was started in 1903 in France and completed in 1905 on the English Channel coast in Eastbourne...

     (Boston Symphony Orchestra)
  • Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
    Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
    Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune , commonly known by its English title Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, is a symphonic poem for orchestra by Claude Debussy, approximately 10 minutes in duration...

     (London Symphony Orchestra)
  • Images (San Francisco Symphony; London Symphony Orchestra)
  • Three Nocturnes (Boston Symphony Orchestra)
  • Nocturnes No. 1-2 (London Symphony Orchestra)
  • Le martyre de Saint Sébastien
    Le martyre de Saint Sébastien
    Le martyre de Saint Sébastien, L 124 is a musical work by the French composer Claude Debussy.Written in 1911, the work—a five-act musical mystery play on the subject of Saint Sebastian -- was produced in collaboration with Gabriele d'Annunzio and designed as a vehicle for Ida Rubinstein...

     - fragments (London Symphony Orchestra)

Delibes
Léo Delibes
Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...

  • Coppélia, Suite (Boston Symphony Orchestra)
  • Sylvia, Suite (Boston Symphony Orchestra)

Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...

  • Symphony No 7
    Symphony No. 7 (Dvorák)
    Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70, B. 141, by Antonín Dvořák was first performed in London on April 22, 1885 shortly after the piece was completed on March 17, 1885.-Compositional structure:Allegro maestosoPoco adagio...

     (London Symphony Orchestra)

Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...

  • Enigma Variations
    Enigma Variations
    Variations on an Original Theme for orchestra , Op. 36, commonly referred to as the Enigma Variations, is a set of a theme and its fourteen variations written for orchestra by Edward Elgar in 1898–1899. It is Elgar's best-known large-scale composition, for both the music itself and the...

     (London Symphony Orchestra)

Franck
César Franck
César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....

  • Symphony in D minor
    Symphony in D minor (Franck)
    The Symphony in D minor is the most famous orchestral work and the only symphony written by the 19th-century Belgian composer César Franck. After two years of work, the symphony was completed 22 August 1888. It was premiered at the Paris Conservatory on 17 February 1889 under the direction of ...

     (San Francisco Symphony Orchestra; Chicago Symphony Orchestra)

Gluck
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...

  • Orfeo ed Euridice (Risë Stevens
    Risë Stevens
    Risë Stevens is a retired American operatic mezzo-soprano.-Professional life:Stevens studied at New York's Juilliard School for three years. She went to Vienna, where she was trained by Marie Gutheil-Schoder and Herbert Graf. She made her début as Mignon in Prague in 1936 and stayed there until...

    , Lisa Della Casa
    Lisa Della Casa
    Lisa Della Casa is a Swiss soprano most admired for her interpretations of major heroines in major operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Strauss, of German lieder, and for her great beauty. She was dubbed “the most beautiful woman on the operatic stage”...

     and Roberta Peters
    Roberta Peters
    Roberta Peters is an American coloratura soprano.One of the most prominent American singers to achieve lasting fame and success in opera, Peters is noted for her 35-year association with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York...

     et al./Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma
    Teatro dell'Opera di Roma
    The Teatro dell'Opera di Roma is an opera house in Rome, Italy. Originally opened in November 1880 as the 2,212 seat Costanzi Theatre, it has undergone several changes of name as well modifications and improvements...

    )

Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...

  • Symphonies No. 94 (Surprise)
    Symphony No. 94 (Haydn)
    The Symphony No. 94 in G major is the second of the twelve so-called London symphonies written by Joseph Haydn. It is usually called by its nickname, the Surprise Symphony, although in German it is more often referred to as the Symphony "mit dem Paukenschlag" .-Date of composition:Haydn wrote...

     and 101 (Clock)
    Symphony No. 101 (Haydn)
    The Symphony No. 101 in D major is the ninth of the twelve so-called London Symphonies written by Joseph Haydn. It is popularly known as The Clock because of the "ticking" rhythm throughout the second movement....

     (Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra)

Khachaturian
Aram Khachaturian
Aram Ilyich Khachaturian was a prominent Soviet composer. Khachaturian's works were often influenced by classical Russian music and Armenian folk music...

  • Violin Concerto, Soloist: Leonid Kogan (Boston Symphony Orchestra)

Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

  • Les Préludes (Boston Symphony Orchestra)

Massenet
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

  • Manon
    Manon
    Manon is an opéra comique in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost...

     (Orchestre de l'Opéra Comique) (Victoria de los Ángeles
    Victoria de los Ángeles
    Victoria de los Ángeles was a Spanish Catalan operatic soprano and recitalist whose career began in the early 1940s and reached its height in the years from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Her obituary in The Times noted that she must be counted “among the finest singers of the second half...

    )

Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

  • Flute Concerto in D major, K314, Soloist: Claude Monteux (London Symphony Orchestra)
  • Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K414, Soloist: Lili Kraus
    Lili Kraus
    Lili Kraus was a Hungarian-born British pianist.-Biography:Lili Kraus was born in Budapest in 1903. Her father was from Czech Lands, and her mother from an assimilated Jewish Hungarian family....

     (Boston Symphony Orchestra)
  • Piano Concerto No. 18 in B-flat, K456, Soloist: Lili Kraus
    Lili Kraus
    Lili Kraus was a Hungarian-born British pianist.-Biography:Lili Kraus was born in Budapest in 1903. Her father was from Czech Lands, and her mother from an assimilated Jewish Hungarian family....

     (Boston Symphony Orchestra)

Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

  • Boléro
    Boléro
    Boléro is a one-movement orchestral piece by Maurice Ravel . Originally composed as a ballet commissioned by Russian ballerina Ida Rubinstein, the piece, which premiered in 1928, is Ravel's most famous musical composition....

     (London Symphony Orchestra)
  • Daphnis et Chloé
    Daphnis et Chloé
    Daphnis et Chloé is a ballet with music by Maurice Ravel. Ravel described it as a "symphonie choréographique" . The scenario was adapted by Michel Fokine from an eponymous romance by the Greek writer Longus thought to date from around the 2nd century AD...

     (London Symphony Orchestra)
  • Daphnis et Chloé, Suites 1-2 (San Francisco Symphony)
  • Ma mère l'oye
    Ma Mère l'Oye
    Ma mère l'oye is a musical work by French composer Maurice Ravel.-Piano versions:Ravel originally wrote Ma mère l'oye as a piano duet for the Godebski children, Mimi and Jean, ages 6 and 7. Ravel dedicated this work for four hands to the children...

     (London Symphony Orchestra)
  • Pavane pour une infante défunte
    Pavane pour une infante défunte
    Pavane pour une infante défunte is a well-known piece written for solo piano by the French composer Maurice Ravel in 1899 when he was studying composition at the Conservatoire de Paris under Gabriel Fauré. Ravel also published an orchestrated version of the Pavane in 1910...

     (London Symphony Orchestra)
  • Rapsodie espagnole
    Rapsodie espagnole
    Rapsodie espagnole is an orchestral rhapsody written by Maurice Ravel. Composed between 1907 and 1908, the Rapsodie represents one of Ravel's first major works for orchestra....

     (London Symphony Orchestra)
  • La valse
    La Valse
    La valse, un poème choréographique pour orchestre , is a work written by Maurice Ravel from February 1919 until 1920 ; it was conceived as a ballet but is now more often heard as a concert work...

     (Orchestre symphonique de Paris; San Francisco Symphony Orchestra; London Symphony Orchestra)
  • Valses nobles et sentimentales
    Valses nobles et sentimentales (Ravel)
    The Valses nobles et sentimentales is a suite of waltzes composed by Maurice Ravel. The piano version was published in 1911, and an orchestral version was published in 1912. The suite contains an eclectic blend of Impressionist and Modernist music, which is especially evident in the orchestrated...

     (San Francisco Symphony Orchestra)

Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...

  • Scheherazade
    Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov)
    Sheherazade , Op. 35, is a symphonic suite composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1888. Based on One Thousand and One Nights, sometimes known as The Arabian Nights, this orchestral work combines two features common to Russian music and of Rimsky-Korsakov in particular: dazzling, colourful...

     (San Francisco Symphony Orchestra; London Symphony Orchestra)

Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...

  • Havanaise, Soloist: Leonid Kogan (Boston Symphony Orchestra)

Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

  • Symphony No. 4 (San Francisco Symphony Orchestra)

Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...

  • Symphony No. 2
    Symphony No. 2 (Sibelius)
    Jean Sibelius's Symphony No. 2 in D major, Opus 43 was started in Winter 1900 in Rapallo, Italy, and finished in 1902 in Finland. It was first performed by the Helsinki Philharmonic Society on 8 March 1902, with the composer conducting...

     (London Symphony Orchestra)

Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

  • Death and Transfiguration (San Francisco Symphony Orchestra)

Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

  • The Firebird, 1919 suite (Paris Conservatoire Orchestra)
  • Petrushka (Paris Conservatoire Orchestra; Boston Symphony Orchestra)
  • The Rite of Spring (Orchestre symphonique de Paris; San Francisco Symphony; Boston Symphony Orchestra)
  • The Rite of Spring (Paris Conservatoire Orchestra)

Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...

  • Symphony No. 4
    Symphony No. 4 (Tchaikovsky)
    Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36, was written between 1877 and 1878. The symphony's first performance was at a Russian Musical Society concert in Saint Petersburg on February 10 /February 22 1878, with Nikolai Rubinstein as conductor.- Form :The symphony is in four...

     (Boston Symphony Orchestra)
  • Symphony No. 5
    Symphony No. 5 (Tchaikovsky)
    The Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was composed between May and August 1888 and was first performed in St Petersburg at the Hall of Nobility on November 6 of that year with Tchaikovsky conducting. It is dedicated to Theodore Avé-Lallemant.-Structure:A typical...

     (Boston Symphony Orchestra; London Symphony Orchestra; North German Radio Symphony Orchestra)
  • Symphony No. 6
    Symphony No. 6 (Tchaikovsky)
    The Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, Pathétique is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's final completed symphony, written between February and the end of August 1893. The composer led the first performance in Saint Petersburg on 16/28 October of that year, nine days before his death...

     (Boston Symphony Orchestra)
  • Sleeping Beauty, excerpts (London Symphony Orchestra)
  • Swan Lake
    Swan Lake
    Swan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...

    , excerpts (London Symphony Orchestra)

Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

  • La traviata
    La traviata
    La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...

     (Rosanna Carteri
    Rosanna Carteri
    Rosanna Carteri was an Italian soprano primarily active in the 1950s through the mid-1960s.Rosanna Carteri was born in Verona but was raised in Padua. She studied with Cusinati and started singing in concert at the age of twelve...

    , Cesare Valletti
    Cesare Valletti
    Cesare Valletti was an Italian operatic tenor, one of the leading tenore di grazia of the postwar era. He was much admired for his polished vocal technique, his musical refinement and elegance, and beauty of tone....

    , Leonard Warren; Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma)

Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

  • Siegfried Idyll
    Siegfried Idyll
    The Siegfried Idyll by Richard Wagner is a symphonic poem for chamber orchestra, lasting approximately twenty minutes.-Background:Wagner composed the Siegfried Idyll as a birthday present to his second wife, Cosima, after the birth of their son Siegfried in 1869...

     (San Francisco Symphony Orchestra)
  • Overture and Venusberg music to Tannhäuser
    Tannhäuser (opera)
    Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...

    , Overture to The Flying Dutchman
    The Flying Dutchman (opera)
    Der fliegende Holländer is an opera, with music and libretto by Richard Wagner.Wagner claimed in his 1870 autobiography Mein Leben that he had been inspired to write "The Flying Dutchman" following a stormy sea crossing he made from Riga to London in July and August 1839, but in his 1843...

    , Tristan und Isolde
    Tristan und Isolde
    Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...

     - Prelude and Liebestod (North German Radio Symphony Orchestra)

Premières

  • Stravinsky, Petrushka, Ballets Russes, Paris, 13 June 1911
  • Ravel, Daphnis et Chloé, Ballets Russes, Paris, 8 June 1912
  • Debussy, Jeux, Ballets Russes, Paris, 15 May 1913
  • Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring, Ballets Russes, Paris, 29 May 1913
  • Schmitt, Ballet La Tragédie de Salomé, Paris, 12 June 1913
  • Stravinsky, The Nightingale
    The Nightingale (opera)
    The Nightingale is a Russian conte lyrique in three acts by Igor Stravinsky. It is generally known by its French name...

    , Paris, 26 May 1914
  • Griffes, The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan, Boston, 28 November 1919
  • Foote, "A Night Piece for Flute and Strings" Boston Symphony, April 1923
  • Bliss, Hymn to Apollo, Amsterdam, 28 November 1926
  • Poulenc
    Francis Poulenc
    Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...

    , Concert champêtre
    Concert champêtre
    Concert champêtre is a harpsichord concerto by Francis Poulenc, which also exists in a version for piano solo with very slight changes in the solo part....

     (Wanda Landowska
    Wanda Landowska
    Wanda Landowska was a Polish harpsichordist whose performances, teaching, recordings and writings played a large role in reviving the popularity of the harpsichord in the early 20th century...

    , soloist), Paris, 3 May 1929
  • Prokofiev Symphony No 3
    Symphony No. 3 (Prokofiev)
    Sergei Prokofiev wrote his Symphony No. 3 in C minor in 1928.-Background:The music derives from Prokofiev's opera The Fiery Angel. This opera had been accepted for performance in the 1927-28 season at the Berlin State Opera by Bruno Walter, but this production never materialised; in fact, the...

    , Paris, 17 May 1929
  • Milhaud, Piano Concerto No 5, op. 346 (Stell Andersen, piano), New York, 16 May 1956

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK