All three works on this CD feature the flute and all feature Pierre Monteux collaborating with his son, Claude. Bach composed some music for the recorder but it is outnumbered by his works for transverse flute which he called the ‘traversiere’. In his Orchestral Suite No. 2, Bach gave the ‘traversiere’ a starring role. Although […]
Monteux recorded Brahms’s Second Symphony several times; in addition to the present recording for Decca with the Vienna Philharmonic, there are versions with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra. He recorded the ‘Variations on a theme by Haydn’ just once, in 1958 with the London Symphony Orchestra. This reissue continues Eloquence’s survey […]
Monteux’s Beethoven has been described as visionary. Respect for the spirit of the score, directness of expression, exceptionally well-drilled playing and a sense of untainted idealism that lay at the very heart of the composer’s vision – these are the qualities that typify Monteux’s interpretation of Beethoven. Eight of the symphonies were recorded for Decca; […]
Pierre Monteux is the ideal interpreter of Ravel that great teaser and lover of mystification. Born less than a month apart in 1875, the two men were bound to come together in pre-war Paris which was such fertile ground for artistic novelty. The 1914-18 war scattered the main actors of Parisian musical life. Like Ravel, […]
The name of Pierre Monteux inevitably brings Stravinsky’s ‘Le sacre du printemps’ to mind; he conducted the notorious first performance in Paris in 1913 which degenerated into a brawl broken up by the police. This historic event has slightly overshadowed other Ballets Russes commissions, such as Ravel’s ‘Daphnis et Chloé’ and Debussy’s ‘Jeux’ which were first […]
Although Pierre Monteux was a notable exponent of both Beethoven and the modern French school, it was with the Ballets Russes that his name was linked. Further, when he was conducting French repertoire in American theatres (particularly at the Metropolitan Opera in New York from 1917 to 1919), he also took on the premières of […]
There can be few, if any, musicians this century who have conducted as many illustrious and notorious premieres as Pierre Monteux. As conductor of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes from 1911 to 1914, he led the first performances of Ravel’s ‘Daphnis et Chloé ‘(1912), Debussy’s ‘Jeux’ (1913) and Stravinsky’s ‘Le Rossignol’ (1914), as well as the two works […]
