Pierre Monteux, maître

by John Canarina

"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."