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Pierre Monteux 1875- 1964
In 1964, the world of music suffered a severe blow. At the friendly little town of Hancock, in the State of Maine, North America, where he had lived since 1952, Pierre Monteux died at the formidable age of eighty-nine years. He seemed so much the personification of eternal youth that the plan formed to celebrate his ninetieth birthday with a series of concerts had been accepted everywhere as a matter of course. His own wish was to die, when the time came, as a fully active conductor or, as his musicians might say, "Il meurt sur le plateau." But fate has willed this otherwise.
All the same, death proved kind to him. When the end was drawing near, his wife wrote: "He is sleeping peacefully away." Now, without discord, and fully resigned, Pierre Monteux has passed into the great silence. The world is in mourning. We lose a friend who for nearly seventy years has brought vivid color to our concert life.
Monteux was born in Paris on April 4, 1875, member of a family which had been settled in Provence for many generations. As a "musicien francais par droit de naissance," he began his career in the ancient "Cafe Concert La Cigale" in Montmartre. His elder brother Paul taught him the violin and his mother, Madame Monteux-Brisac, a Conservatoire teacher, saw to it that his way soon led from Montmartre to Montparnasse. Along with Jacques Thibaud and Alfred Cortot, he attended classes at the Conservatoire and there won the "Premier Prix." Later as an orchestral player with the Colonne and at the Opera Comique, he was an active witness of the great period of Massenet and of Debussy's rise. He also developed himself as a chamber musician, by playing the viola in the Capet Quartet and, in the summer season, working at the Casino in Dieppe where, besides directing operas, operettas and concerts, he was also required to look after dance-music balls and other festivities-- a kind of eighteenth century "divertissement" job which gave him hard schooling in all aspects of his profession. His first big chance came in 1911 when Petroushka was under rehearsal by the Russian Ballet. The conductor Tcherepnin had fallen ill and Stravinsky, lookeing for a substitute who could at least rehearse the music, turned to Pierne for advice. Pierne recommended Monteux and Monteux did the work so well that Stravinsky entrusted him with the first performance. The premiere took place on June 13, 1911 in Paris and with it Monteux's spectacular rise began. After that, he conducted the first performances of Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe ( 1912) and Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps (1913). Today, these two events are connected forever with his name-- the printed scores of the two works carry it proudly. London, Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, and Monte Carlo--all these cities soon saw him conduct. In the meantime, he had been made chief conductor of the Russian Ballet and the focus, therefore, of its musical activities--a fascinating role, interrupted only by the First World War, during which he served as a "poilu. "
Pierre Monteux first came to Amsterdam in 1924 to act as co-conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, along with Willem Mengelberg. He carried out this function for ten consecutive years and during that time gave fresh depths to our musical life, as much in the field of orchestral music as in music drama. It was to his inspiration to a large extent, that the recent creative flowering in Dutch music traces its beginnings. His passionate advocacy of the work of Willem Pijper, whose Third Symphony is dedicated to him, is symptomatic in this respect. Later, when outside calls caused him to relax the full pressure of his valuable work in the Netherlands, he was never long absent (except during the war) from the Concertgebouw rostrum and in fact was scheduled to appear in Amsterdam again-- to conduct the orchestra and to complete a series of recordings with it that he had already begun when death intervened.
After WW I, he went to America to conduct the Metropolitan Opera in New York and also the Boston Symphony Orchestra. After this he returned to Europe, and the invitation from the Concertgebouw was followed by the decade in Amsterdam. Meanwhile he conducted the Paris Symphony Orchestra, finally leaving for America again to assume command of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, a position he held for seventeen years.
Monteux remained in San Francisco until 1952. After that, at least for the time being, he did not accept a firm appointment but during the next decade made guest appearances in America and Europe. Nevertheless, as he advanced in years, he apparently felt the wish to fill some fixed position once again--a desire emanating no doubt from the artist's natural need to concentrate himself on a goal which will give his activities true coherence and direction. Thus we saw Monteux, in 1961, at the age of 86 years, accepting the conductorship of the London Symphony Orchestra, which, under its new principal conductor was soon playing an important part in British and international musical life. In 1963 the orchestra, led by Monteux, undertook a tour of Japan, and hardly had they returned from the Far East when they were called upon to take part in one of the most remarkable jubilees in musical history. On May 29, 1963, exactly half a century after its sensational premiere in Paris, Le Sacre du Printemps was played again--this time at the Royal Albert Hall with Monteux, the conductor of the premiere, standing on the rostrum and Stravinsky himself present. The "accolade" exchanged by composer and interpreter before this immense audience consummated an artistic friendship that had proved as productive of good music as it had been fascinating to watch. And so we near the last chapter of a life that, at the end, had perfectly fulfilled the portents of its early days. A series of concert tours was on schedule for 1964. Monteux's health at this time was still strong and his mind lucid, save for certain mild aches and pains which might have prompted caution. The invitations were looked at selectively. Among them was a request to visit Israel. Normally, Monteux, always ready to accept good counsel, would have responded to the advice given him on this occasion which was not to accept, owing to the stress such a tour, in such a climate, might impose on him, but in this case he resisted. The emotions drawing him to this country proved stronger than the arguments that could be raised and, in retrospect, it is possible to conjecture that the strains he suffered in following his bent may have hastened the end. Be that as it may, Pierre Monteux had fulfilled the dream of a lifetime and the moving response his concerts received in Israel proved him right in the highest sense.
We have now to consider how much of the man found its way into the music he made. Monteux's origin, his innate refinement and feeling for proportions, together with the hard apprenticeship that, as we saw before, was his lot, determined, automatically as it were, the way he approached music. His temperamental equilibrium eschewed all false sentiment and ornament, and made him suspicious of' "interpretation." In 1911, during the rehearsals for Petroushka, Stravinsky wrote:
"Connaissant tres bien son metier, ainsi que le milieu d'ou il etait sorti, Monteux savait s'entendre avec ses musiciens chose tres utile pour un chef et avait tres proprement mis au point d'execution de ma partition. Je n'en demande pas d'avantage a un chef d'orchestre, car toute autre attitude de sa part tourne tout de suite en interpretation, chose que j'ai en horreur" and after the half-century jubilee of the Sacre mentioned above the composer declared:
"Monteux, almost alone amongst conductors, has never cheapened 'Le Sacre' or looked for his own glory in it: he has continued to play it all his life with the greatest fidelity."
It is clear that this direct craftsmanship formed the best soundboard for contemporary music and no conductor has done more for the musical art of our days than Monteux. To the very last he worked ceaselessly for it, and his ''studio," the conductors' course at Hancock, has done a great deal to ensure that a younger generation of conductors will take up Monteux's ideas where he left off. Nevertheless, once he knew this aim was safe, Monteux, then already a man in his eighties, returned to the sources of music that had enriched his youth. It was certainly not the suspect nostalgia of a lost love which led him to do this. It was rather a return to a purer form, a process of sublimation that can only come after many wanderings. Monteux made his pilgrimage to composers like Beethoven and Schubert. The great spring cleaning began. What an earlier generation had distorted he repaired. The score, and the score only was his guide--stripped of all extras, clear and tense, ordered and beautifully assembled, but at the same time sensitive and lively. The nineteenth century masters shone in a new light, the transparent light Descartes called "la clarite"-- the mark of French "esprit."
This adventure of his old age was the great miracle of Monteux, and it is a consoling thought that his last exploits are preserved for posterity not only as a homage to a dead master but also a precious contribution to the history of European interpretative art. Listening to these productions, we realise once again that Monteux belongs to the very great conductors, to the true originals who blaze the trail and find their place in the pantheon of music. Alongside the spectacular virtuoso, the fascinating romantic, the self-conscious dictator, now is ranged, modestly and restrainedly, the aristocrat from the Mediterranee. In the hearts of many like myself, however, it is the man himself who remains most vividly--in all his simplicity and dignity, the "bon camarade," to whom we return thanks for a lifetime of loyalty and friendship.
Now that we take leave of him, our thoughts may well go back to his last concert in Amsterdam, or rather not to the concert, but to those that awaited him outside-- an enthusiastic crowd among which were many young people, uplifted by what they had just experienced. Then, suddenly, a silence fell and the people moved aside, as Monteux left the building. The great conductor stood there, bareheaded--a craftsman in service to the muse thoughout all his unimaginably long life. A hesitating cheer was struck dumb, but the respect, more even than the affection, was palpable. Monteux responded with a sober gesture and left, accompanied by his wife only.
Now, as then, we call out to him, silently: "Merci
Pierre, tu as bien merite de la musique." Dr. PAUL CRONHEIM.