Pierre Monteux

Pierre Monteux was born in Paris in April 1875, into a Sephardic Jewish family. He studied violin and viola at the Paris Conservatoire, joining the Concerts Colonne as principal viola in his early twenties, and earned his early conducting experience through summer hotel and casino orchestras before his appointment as the Ballets Russes’ principal conductor in 1911. The four years that followed produced one of the most concentrated runs of premieres in the twentieth century: Stravinsky’s *Petrushka* (1911), *The Rite of Spring* (1913) and *Le Rossignol* (1914), Ravel’s *Daphnis et Chloé* (1912), and Debussy’s *Jeux* (1913).

He served as principal conductor of the Boston Symphony from 1919 to 1924, the Concertgebouw from 1924 to 1934, the Paris Symphony Orchestra from 1929, and the San Francisco Symphony from 1935 to 1952 — the last of these the post that established his American reputation. He was particularly associated with the French repertoire, Brahms, and the works he had premiered with Diaghilev, and was widely regarded by the next generation of conductors as the master of orchestral technique. He held a teaching practice at his summer home in Hancock, Maine, where Neville Marriner, André Previn, Lorin Maazel and David Zinman were among his pupils.

Monteux signed a twenty-five-year contract with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1961 at the age of eighty-six — with an option to renew. He died in Hancock in July 1964, having conducted the LSO and the Boston Symphony on tour in his final months. Music Preserved’s archive includes a range of his recorded work with the LSO and other British orchestras.