Research Catalog

Title

Pierre Monteux, maître / by John Canarina ; with a foreword by Sir Neville Marriner.

Author

Canarina, John, 1934-

Publication

• Portland, OR : Amadeus Press, 2003.
• ©2003

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

353 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"Pierre Monteux became famous at the age of thirty-eight for conducting the riotous world premiere of Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in Paris on 29 May 1913. The composer, fearing bodily harm, escaped through a backstage window, while the imperturbable conductor persisted, forever to be identified with the event. Though French by birth (he lived from 1875 to 1964), the distinctively portly man with the walrus mustache resisted being typecast as a French conductor. He could have been a European maestro: he played for Brahms, worked with Grieg, presided over the world premieres of major works by Ravel, Stravinsky, and many others, was Diaghilev's conductor of choice. But it was Monteux's American audiences, especially in San Francisco and Boston, who would love him the most over the course of a long career. He conducted many American premieres, works of Debussy, Falla, Ravel, and among the more than a dozen Boston premieres those of The Rite of Spring and of Mahler's First Symphony. But ultimately it was his students - including Marriner, Maazel, Kunzel, Previn, Zinman, and author John Canarina - who would be his dearest successes, along with the living legacy of the conducting school he founded in Hancock, Maine, in 1943." --

Subjects

• Conductors (Music)
• Monteux, Pierre
• Monteux, Pierre, 1875-1964
• Biographies
• Biography
• France
• Dirigent
• Conductors (Music) > France > Biography

Genre/Form

• Biography
• Biographies
• Biographies.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 342-344) and index.
• Includes discography.

Contents

Overture : 29 May 1913 -- Early years -- Becoming a conductor -- The Rite -- Beyond The Rite -- The Met -- The Boston symphony -- Doris and Pierre -- Amsterdam -- Back to America -- The OSP -- Interlude: Les Baux -- Arrival in San Francisco -- San Francisco and NBC -- Established in San Francisco -- Recordings and broadcasts -- The Philharmonic and a return to Philadelphia and Amsterdam -- Coast to coast -- Summertime -- Letters to Doris -- Au revoir to San Francisco-but not good-bye -- Return to Boston -- The "Eroica" -- L'École Monteux -- Interlude : Family life -- Return to NBC and the met -- Monteux at eighty -- Return to San Francisco -- Finally, Traviata: recordings in the 1950s -- The LSO : Monteux at eighty-five -- Principal conductor -- The final year -- Coda : Closing thoughts.

ISBN

• 1574670824
• 9781574670820

LCCN

2002040871

OCLC

• ocm50851738
• 50851738
• SCSB-14231787

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library