Editing Pierre Monteux (section)

===Amsterdam and Paris===
[[File:W. Mengelberg.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Willem Mengelberg]], Monteux's colleague at the [[Concertgebouw, Amsterdam|Concertgebouw]]]]
In 1924, Monteux began a ten-year association with the [[Concertgebouw Orchestra]] of Amsterdam, serving as "first conductor" ("''eerste dirigent''") alongside [[Willem Mengelberg]], its long-serving chief conductor. The two musicians liked and respected one another, despite the difference in their approach to music-making: Monteux was scrupulous in his adherence to a composer's score and straightforward in his performances, while Mengelberg was well known for his virtuoso, sometimes wilful, interpretations and his cavalier attitude to the score ("Ve vill make some changements", as an English player quoted him).<ref>Shore, p. 119</ref> Their preferred repertoire overlapped in some of the classics, but Mengelberg had his own favourites from [[J.S. Bach|Bach]]'s ''[[St. Matthew Passion]]'' to [[Gustav Mahler|Mahler]] symphonies, and was happy to leave Debussy and Stravinsky to Monteux. Where their choices coincided, as in Beethoven, Brahms and Richard Strauss, Mengelberg was generous in giving Monteux at least his fair share of them.<ref>Canarina, p. 85</ref>

While in Amsterdam Monteux conducted a number of operas, including ''Pelléas et Mélisande'' (its Dutch premiere), ''Carmen'', ''[[Les Contes d'Hoffmann]]'', a [[Jean-Baptiste Lully|Lully]] and Ravel double bill of ''[[Acis et Galatée]]'' and ''[[L'Heure espagnole]]'', [[Christoph Willibald Gluck|Gluck]]'s ''[[Iphigénie en Tauride]]'' (also brought to the Paris Opéra)<ref>Pitou, p. 289</ref> and [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi]]'s ''[[Falstaff (opera)|Falstaff]]''. Toscanini had been invited to conduct the last of these, but he told the promoters that Monteux was his dearest colleague and the best conductor for ''Falstaff''.<ref>Canarina, pp. 90–91</ref>

During the first eight years of his association with the Concertgebouw, Monteux conducted between fifty and sixty concerts each season. In his final two years with the orchestra other conductors, notably the rising young Dutchman [[Eduard van Beinum]], were allocated concerts that would previously have been given to Monteux, who amicably withdrew from his position in Amsterdam in 1934.<ref>Canarina, pp. 92–93</ref> He returned many times as a guest conductor.<ref name="Reputations – Pierre Monteux"/>

[[File:Salle-Pleyel-P1000321.jpg|thumb|right|[[Salle Pleyel]], base of the [[Orchestre Symphonique de Paris]]]]
In addition to his work with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, from 1929 Monteux conducted the [[Orchestre Symphonique de Paris]] (OSP), founded the previous year.{{refn|group=n|The ''[[Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]'' incorrectly states that Monteux founded the OSP in 1929.<ref name=grove/>}} The orchestral scene in Paris in the 1920s had been adversely affected by the "deputy" system,<ref>[[Adrian Boult|Boult, Adrian C.]] [https://www.jstor.org/stable/765663 "The Orchestral Problem of the Future"], ''Proceedings of the Musical Association'', 49th Session, (1922–1923), pp. 39–57 {{subscription}}</ref> whereby any contracted orchestral player was at liberty, if a better engagement became available, to send a deputy to a rehearsal or even to a concert. In most other major cities in Europe and America this practice either had never existed or had been eradicated.<ref name=c105>Canarina, p. 105</ref> Alongside the opera orchestras, four other Paris orchestras were competing for players.<ref name=mousnier77>Mousnier, p. 77</ref> In 1928 the arts patron the [[Winnaretta Singer|Princesse de Polignac]] combined with the fashion designer [[Coco Chanel]] to propose a new orchestra, well enough paid to keep its players from taking conflicting engagements.<ref name=c105/> With financial backing assured, they appointed a triumvirate of musicians – Cortot, [[Ernest Ansermet]] and [[Louis Fourestier]] – to assemble the OSP.<ref name=n53>Nichols (2002), p. 53</ref> The following year Cortot invited Monteux to become the orchestra's artistic director and principal conductor.<ref name=c106>Canarina, p. 106</ref> Ansermet, its initial musical director, was not pleased at being supplanted by a conductor of whom he was reportedly "ragingly jealous",<ref>Culshaw, p. 181</ref> but the composer [[Darius Milhaud]] commented on how much better the orchestra played for Monteux "since Ansermet has been sent back to his Swiss pastures".<ref name=n53/>

Monteux considered the OSP one of the finest with which he worked.<ref>Monteux (1965), p. 158</ref> He conducted it until 1938, premiering many pieces, including [[Sergei Prokofiev|Prokofiev]]'s [[Symphony No. 3 (Prokofiev)|Third Symphony]] in 1929.<ref name=grove/> The orchestra's generous funding in the first years allowed for ample rehearsals and adventurous programming, presenting contemporary music and the lesser-known works of earlier composers as well as the classic repertoire.<ref name=c105/> In his first season Monteux conducted an all-Stravinsky concert, consisting of the suite from ''The Firebird'' and complete performances of ''Petrushka'' and ''The Rite of Spring''.<ref>Mousnier, p. 76</ref> The orchestra made European tours in 1930 and 1931, receiving enthusiastic receptions in the Netherlands and Germany. In Berlin the audience could not contain its applause until the end of the ''[[Symphonie fantastique]]'', and in Monteux's words "went wild" after the slow movement, the "Scène aux champs".<ref>Monteux (1965), p. 160</ref> He approved of spontaneous applause, unlike [[Artur Schnabel]], Sir Henry Wood and [[Leopold Stokowski]], who did all they could to stamp out the practice of clapping between movements.<ref>Canarina, p. 270 (Monteux); Reid (1968), p. 181 (Schnabel); Jacobs, p. 82 (Wood); and Judkins, Jennifer. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/4622272 "Review: Music as Thought – Listening to the Symphony in the Age of Beethoven by Mark Evan Bonds"], ''The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism'' Vol. 65, No. 4 (Autumn, 2007), pp. 428–430 {{subscription}} (Stokowski)</ref>

After 1931 the OSP suffered the effects of the [[Great Depression]]; much of its funding ceased, and the orchestra reformed itself into a co-operative, pooling such meagre profits as it made.<ref>Canarina, pp. 111–112</ref> To give the players some extra work Monteux started a series of conducting classes in 1932. From 1936 he held the classes at his summer home in [[Les Baux-de-Provence|Les Baux]] in Provence, the forerunner of the school he later set up in the US.<ref>Canarina, p. 114</ref>