Ernest Ansermet

Ernest Ansermet was born in Vevey, Switzerland, in November 1883, and studied mathematics at the universities of Lausanne and Paris before turning to music in his early twenties. He taught mathematics at the Lausanne Gymnasium until 1909, then took conducting lessons with Ernest Bloch and André Gédalge and observed Felix Mottl, Arthur Nikisch and Felix Weingartner at work. His professional conducting career began in 1910 at the Kursaal in Montreux, and from 1912 he conducted the symphony concerts of Montreux and the Geneva Conservatory.

His career was decisively shaped by Stravinsky, whom he met in 1911 and who introduced him to Diaghilev. From 1915 to 1923 Ansermet conducted the Ballets Russes, leading the premieres of Stravinsky’s *L’Histoire du soldat* (1918), Falla’s *El sombrero de tres picos* (1919), Satie’s *Parade* and Prokofiev’s *Chout*. In 1918 he founded the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva and remained its principal conductor until 1967 — a forty-nine-year tenure that produced the substantial Decca recorded legacy that defined the orchestra’s reputation. He was particularly associated with French and Russian repertoire and a lifelong advocate of Debussy.

Ansermet also wrote extensively on aesthetics and the philosophy of music — his 1961 book *Les fondements de la musique dans la conscience humaine* argued against atonality on phenomenological grounds and provoked a long-running disagreement with Stravinsky. He died in Geneva in February 1969. Music Preserved’s archive includes a range of his work with the Suisse Romande in twentieth-century European performance.