Editing Pierre Monteux (section)

==Music making==

===Reputation and repertoire===
The record producer [[John Culshaw]] described Monteux as "that rarest of beings&nbsp;– a conductor who was loved by his orchestras ... to call him a legend would be to understate the case."<ref>Culshaw, p. 144</ref> Toscanini observed that Monteux had the best baton technique he had ever seen.<ref name="rm135"/> Like Toscanini, Monteux insisted on the traditional orchestral layout with first and second violins to the conductor's left and right, believing that this gave a better representation of string detail than grouping all the violins together on the left.{{refn|group=n|Monteux's view on the layout of first and second violins was shared by, among others, Klemperer and Boult; the latter wrote, "I am in a small minority. However, on my side are (Bruno) [[Bruno Walter|Walter]], Monteux, Klemperer and a few others, including Toscanini ..."<ref>Boult (1983), p. 146</ref>}} On fidelity to composers' scores, Monteux's biographer John Canarina ranks him with Klemperer and above even Toscanini, whose reputation for strict adherence to the score was, in Canarina's view, less justified than Monteux's.<ref>Canarina, p. 83</ref>

{{Quote box |bgcolor=#F8E0F7|salign=right| quote = Our principal work is to keep the orchestra together and carry out the composer's instructions, not to be sartorial models, cause dowagers to swoon, or distract audiences by our "interpretation".| source =Pierre Monteux<ref name=cosman>Smith (1957), p. 98</ref>|align=left|width=250px}}

According to the biographical sketch in ''[[Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]'', Monteux "was never an ostentatious conductor ... [he prepared] his orchestra in often arduous rehearsals and then [used] small but decisive gestures to obtain playing of fine texture, careful detail and powerful rhythmic energy, retaining to the last his extraordinary grasp of musical structure and a faultless ear for sound quality."<ref name=grove/> Monteux was extremely economical with words and gestures and expected a response from his smallest movement.<ref name="CRCTolansky"/> The record producer Erik Smith recalled of Monteux's rehearsals with the Vienna Philharmonic for Beethoven's [[Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven)|Pastoral Symphony]] and Brahms's [[Symphony No. 2 (Brahms)|Second]], "although he could not speak to the orchestra in German, he transformed their playing from one take to the next".<ref name="MMSmith"/>

The importance of rehearsal to Monteux was shown when, in 1923, Diaghilev asked him to conduct Stravinsky's new ''[[Les noces]]'' with no rehearsal, as the composer would already have conducted the first performance, Monteux following on from there. Monteux told the impresario "Stravinsky, 'e can do what 'e like, but I have to do what ze composer 'as written."<ref name="MMSmith"/> Monteux's self-effacing approach to scores led to occasional adverse comment; the music critic of ''[[The Nation]]'', [[B. H. Haggin]], while admitting that Monteux was generally regarded as one of the giants of conducting, wrote of his "repeatedly demonstrated musical mediocrity".<ref>Haggin, p. 127</ref> Other American writers have taken a different view. In 1957 [[Carleton Smith]] wrote, "His approach to all music is that of the master-craftsman. ... Seeing him at work, modest and quiet, it is difficult to realize that he is a bigger box office attraction at the Metropolitan Opera House than any prima donna ... that he is the only conductor regularly invited to take charge of America's 'big three'&nbsp;– the Boston, [[Philadelphia Orchestra|Philadelphia]] and [[New York Philharmonic]] orchestras."<ref name=cosman/> In his 1967 book ''The Great Conductors'', [[Harold C. Schonberg]] wrote of Monteux, "[A] conductor of international stature, a conductor admired and loved all over the world. The word 'loved' is used advisedly."<ref>Schonberg (1967), p. 328</ref> Elsewhere, Schonberg wrote of Monteux's "passion and charisma".<ref>Schonberg (1981), p. 59</ref> When asked in a radio interview to describe himself (as a conductor) in one word, Monteux replied, "Damned professional".<ref>Monteux (1962), p. 63</ref>

{{ external media | float = right | width = 250px | audio1 = You may hear Pierre Monteux conducting [[Johannes Brahms]]'s ''[[Alto Rhapsody]]'' with the contralto [[Marian Anderson]] the [[San Francisco Symphony Orchestra]] and Chorus in 1945 [https://archive.org/details/BRAHMSAltoRhapsody-NEWTRANSFER '''Here on archive.org''']}} 
Throughout his career Monteux suffered from being thought of as a specialist in French music. The music that meant most to him was that of German composers, particularly Brahms, but this was often overlooked by concert promoters and recording companies. Of the four Brahms symphonies, he was invited by the recording companies to record only one, the Second. Recordings of his live performances of the [[Symphony No. 1 (Brahms)|First]] and [[Symphony No. 3 (Brahms)|Third]] have been released on CD, but the discography in Canarina's biography lists no recording, live or from the studio, of the [[Symphony No. 4 (Brahms)|Fourth]].<ref name=disco>Canarina, pp. 321–340</ref> The critic [[William Mann (critic)|William Mann]], along with many others, regarded him as a "supremely authoritative" conductor of Brahms,<ref>"Style and the Bounds of Nationalism", ''The Times'', 21 April 1961, p. 20</ref> though Cardus disagreed: "In German music Monteux, naturally enough, missed harmonic weight and the right heavily lunged tempo. His rhythm, for example, was a little too pointed for, say, Brahms or Schumann."<ref name=cardus/> ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]''{{'}}s reviewer Jonathan Swain contends that no conductor knew more than Monteux about expressive possibilities in the strings, claiming that "the conductor who doesn't play a stringed instrument simply doesn't know how to get the different sounds; and the bow has such importance in string playing that there are maybe 50 different ways of producing the same note";<ref name="Reputations – Pierre Monteux"/> In his 2003 biography, John Canarina lists nineteen "significant world premieres" conducted by Monteux. In addition to ''Petrushka'' and ''The Rite of Spring'' is a further Stravinsky work, ''The Nightingale''. Monteux's other premieres for Diaghilev included Ravel's ''Daphnis et Chloé'' and Debussy's ''Jeux''. In the concert hall he premiered works by, among others, Milhaud, [[Francis Poulenc|Poulenc]] and Prokofiev.{{refn|group=n|The works listed by Canarina are: Stravinsky, ''Petrushka'', Ballets Russes, Paris, 13 June 1911; Ravel, ''Daphnis et Chloé'', Ballets Russes, Paris, 8 June 1912; Debussy, ''Jeux'', Ballets Russes, Paris, 15 May 1913; Stravinsky, ''The Rite of Spring'', Ballets Russes, Paris, 29 May 1913; [[Florent Schmitt]], ''La Tragédie de Salomé'', Paris, 12 June 1913; Stravinsky, ''The Nightingale'', Paris, 26 May 1914; [[Charles Griffes]], ''The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan'', Boston, 28 November 1919; Ravel, ''[[Tzigane]]'', ([[Samuel Dushkin]], soloist), Amsterdam, 19 October 1924; [[Willem Pijper]], Symphony No 3, Amsterdam, 28 October 1926; [[Arthur Bliss|Bliss]], ''Hymn to Apollo'', Amsterdam, 28 November 1926; Poulenc, ''[[Concert champêtre]]'', ([[Wanda Landowska]], soloist), Paris, 3 May 1929; Prokofiev [[Symphony No. 3 (Prokofiev)|Symphony No 3]], Paris, 17 May 1929; Milhaud, Viola Concerto ([[Paul Hindemith]], soloist) Amsterdam, 15 December 1929; [[Gian Francesco Malipiero]], Violin Concerto, (Viola Mitchell, soloist), Amsterdam, 5 March 1933; [[Ernest Bloch|Bloch]], ''Evocations'', San Francisco, 11 February 1938; [[Roger Sessions]], Symphony No 2, San Francisco, 9 January 1947; [[George Antheil]], Symphony No 6, San Francisco, 10 February 1949.<ref>Canarina, p. 341</ref>}} In a letter of April 1914 Stravinsky wrote "everyone can appreciate your zeal and your probity in regard to the contemporary works of various tendencies that you have had occasion to defend."<ref>Stravinsky, p. 60</ref>

Monteux's biographer Jean-Philippe Mousnier analysed a representative sample of Monteux's programmes for more than 300 concerts. The symphonies played most frequently were César Franck's D minor Symphony, the ''Symphonie fantastique'', Beethoven's [[Symphony No. 7 (Beethoven)|Seventh]], Tchaikovsky's [[Symphony No. 5 (Tchaikovsky)|Fifth]] and [[Symphony No. 6 (Tchaikovsky)|Sixth]], and the first two symphonies of Brahms. Works by Richard Strauss featured almost as often as those of Debussy, and Wagner's Prelude and "Liebestod" from ''[[Tristan und Isolde]]'' as often as ''The Rite of Spring''.<ref>Mousnier, pp. 235–248</ref>

===Recordings===
{{Main|Pierre Monteux discography}}
{{Quote box |bgcolor=#F5F6CE |salign=left| quote =  You may give an excellently played, genuinely felt performance of a movement, but because the engineer is not satisfied because there is some rustling at one point, so you do it again and this time something else goes wrong. By the time you get a "perfect" take of the recording the players are bored, the conductor is bored, and the performance is lifeless and boring. ... I detest all my own records.| source = Monteux expressing his dislike of studio recording sessions, ''The Times'', March 1959.<ref name=times102>"Conductor of 102 Orchestras", ''The Times'', 31 March 1959, p. 11</ref>|align=right| width=300px}}

Monteux made a large number of recordings throughout his career. His first recording was as a [[viola|violist]] in "Plus blanche que la blanche hermine" from ''[[Les Huguenots]]'' by [[Giacomo Meyerbeer|Meyerbeer]] in 1903 for [[Pathé Records|Pathé]] with the tenor [[Albert Vaguet]].<ref>{{cite book|last= Giroud |first= Vincent |year= 2009|title=''Liner notes to'' Meyerbeer on Record 1899–1913 |location=Swarthmore, PA |publisher=Marston Records |oclc= 459789444}}</ref> It is possible that Monteux played in the Colonne Orchestra's 20 early cylinders recorded around 1906–07.<ref>Daouste, Raoul. Pierre Monteux and his records. Note for Cascavelle CD set VEL3037, 2002.</ref> His recording debut as a conductor was the first of his five recordings of ''The Rite of Spring'', issued in 1929,<ref>Canarina, pp. 325 and 328</ref> with the OSP, judged by Canarina to be indifferently played; recordings by Monteux of music by Ravel and Berlioz made in 1930 and 1931, Canarina believes, were more impressive. Stravinsky, who also recorded ''The Rite'' in 1929, was furious that Monteux had made a rival recording; he made vitriolic comments privately, and for some time his relations with Monteux remained cool.<ref>Walsh, Stephen. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1193520 "First Rites for Stravinsky"], ''The Musical Times'', Vol. 130, No. 1759 (September 1989), pp. 538–539 {{subscription}}</ref>

Monteux's final studio recordings were with the London Symphony Orchestra in works by Ravel at the end of February 1964.<ref>Discographical information in booklet for: Pierre Monteux&nbsp;– Decca and Philips Recordings 1956–1964 (475 7798). Decca Music Group Ltd, 2006.</ref> In the course of his career he recorded works by more than fifty composers.<ref>Canarina, pp. 321–326</ref>
In Monteux's lifetime it was rare for record companies to issue recordings of live concerts, although he would much have preferred it, he said, "if one could record in one take in normal concert-hall conditions".<ref name=times102/> Some live performances of Monteux conducting the Metropolitan Opera, and among others the San Francisco Symphony, Boston Symphony, BBC Symphony and London Symphony orchestras survive alongside his studio recordings, and some have been issued on compact disc.<ref>Achenbach, Andrew. "Orchestral Reissues", ''Gramophone'', May 2006, p. 83</ref> It has been argued that these reveal even more than his studio recordings "a conductor at once passionate, disciplined, and tasteful; one who was sometimes more vibrant than the Monteux captured in the studio, and yet, like that studio conductor, a cultivated musician possessing an extraordinary ear for balance, a keen sense of style and a sure grasp of shape and line."<ref>Frank, Mortimer H. "Review of CDs 'Sunday Evenings with Pierre Monteux'". ''[[Classic Record Collector]]'', Summer 1998, Number 13, pp. 102–105</ref>

Many of Monteux's recordings have remained in the catalogues for decades, notably his [[RCA Red Seal Records|RCA Victor]] recordings with the Boston Symphony and [[Chicago Symphony Orchestra|Chicago Symphony]] orchestras; [[Decca Records|Decca]] recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic; and Decca and [[Philips Records|Philips]] recordings with the LSO.<ref name=disco/> Of ''Manon'', one of his few opera recordings, Alan Blyth in ''Opera on Record'' states "Monteux had the music in his blood and here dispenses it with authority and spirit".<ref>Blyth, p. 483</ref>{{refn|group=n|The Naxos CD reissue included Monteux's spoken recollection of Massenet during rehearsals for a major Opéra-Comique revival, correcting the orchestra and singers.<ref>{{cite video|title= Manon: ''Reissue of 1955 recording''|medium= CD|publisher= Naxos|year= 2007|oclc= 299065498}}</ref>}} He can be heard rehearsing in the original LP issues of Beethoven's [[Symphony No. 3 (Beethoven)|''Eroica'' Symphony]] with the Concertgebouw Orchestra (Philips 835132 AY) and Beethoven's 9th with the London Symphony ([[Westminster Records|Westminster]], WST 234).<ref name=CRC34Canarina/>

Video recordings of Monteux are scarcer. He is seen conducting Berlioz's [[Roman Carnival Overture]] and [[Symphony No. 8 (Beethoven)|Beethoven's 8th symphony]] with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,<ref>Potter, Tully. "Review of VAI and EMI DVDs", ''Classic Record Collector'', Autumn 2003, Number 34, pp. 61–62</ref> and Dukas' ''[[L'Apprenti sorcier]]'' with the London Symphony Orchestra in an "unshowy, deeply satisfying humane way".<ref>[[Benjamin Ivry|Ivry B]]. Review of EMI/IMG Classic Archive DVD. ''Classic Record Collector'', Winter 2004, Number 39, p. 64</ref>