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Pierre Monteux


Pierre Monteux (April 4, 1875 – July 1, 1964) was an orchestra conductor. Born in Paris, France, rue de la Grange Batelière. Monteux later became an American citizen.

Life and career

Monteux 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. In his spare time he also played at the Folies Bergères. He later took up the viola studying with Théophile Laforge and played in the Geloso Quartet which played one of Brahms's string quartets in a private performance for the composer and in the orchestra of the Opéra-Comique, leading the viola section in the première of Debussy's opera, 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's ballet company, the Ballets Russes. In this capacity he conducted the premières of Stravinsky's Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913) – with its famous riot – as well as Debussy's Jeux (1913) and Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé (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 in New York City from 1917 to 1919. He also conducted the United States premières of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Golden Cockerel and Henri Rabaud's Mârouf, savetier du Caire at the Metropolitan Opera.

He then moved to the Boston Symphony Orchestra (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 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 in the audience, according to a 2008 report. (Carter was again in attendance, on the occasion of his 100th birthday in Carnegie Hall in 2008 when the orchestra, now under the baton of James Levine, again performed the Stravinsky piece.)

In 1924, Monteux also began an association with the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, serving as "first conductor" ("eerste dirigent") alongside Willem Mengelberg. In 1929, he was entrusted the direction of the Orchestre symphonique de Paris, 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 for Conductors and Orchestra Musicians, which is in Hancock, Maine, where Monteux was then living; Hancock was the childhood home of his second wife, Doris Hodgkins Monteux. There he taught such future conductors as Anshel Brusilow, Lorin Maazel, Neville Marriner, André Previn, Werner Torkanowsky and David Zinman. 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's Siegfried Idyll and Richard Strauss'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. 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, London, in the presence of the composer. In his last studio sessions, for Philips Records in 1964, Monteux recorded a disc with the LSO and his son, the flautist Claude 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 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 observed that Monteux had the best baton technique he had ever seen.



Carl Bamberger
Carl Bamberger graduated from the University of Vienna, music history and philosophy and 1920-24 music theory and piano with Heinrich Schenker and cello with Friedrich Buxbaum .  1924-27 he worked at the City Theatre Danzig and 1927-31 at the State Theatre Darmstadt engaged as a conductor. Bamberger was a guest conductor from 1930, including in Asia, Russia, Egypt, before 1937 in the USA emigrated , where he led various orchestras.. In 1940 he founded the New York Choral Group of Manhattan and ran it until 1945. 1943-50 he was general music director of the Spring Festival in Columbia, South Carolina.  1938-75 he taught at the Mannes College of Music in New York, composition and conducting, 1975/76 at Louisiana State University.  1947/48 and 1950/51 he was chief conductor of The Little Symphony of Montreal / La Petite Symphonie de Montréal.  In 1951 he conducted the premiere stage  by Bohuslav Martinu Comedy on the Bridge (Comedy on the Bridge) at Hunter College in New York. . In the years 1957-74, he appeared as guest conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra again in Europe.  His circle of students include Marin Alsop, George Cleve, Julius Rudel , Richard Goode, Leonard Gregory Kastle, Ira Kraemer , Daniel Lipton, Murray Perahia , Eve Queler , Michael Jeffrey Shapiro, Henry Shek, Roy Sonne, Dina Soresi Winter.

Mr. Bamberger recorded extensively after World War 2 in both Europe and the U.S. for Columbia Records, Concert Hall Records and Urania Records.
He was a cellist and married Lotte (prop, Charlotte Maria, born Hammerschlag)  after her violin studies at the Vienna Music Academy. She became well known as a violist. . After emigrating, she played the 1936-38 Palestine Symphony Orchestra in Tel Aviv. She also taught at the Mannes College of Music in New York and performed as a soloist in numerous concerts and recordings.
 
Carl Bamberger died in New York in August 1987