Background
Pierre Benjamin Monteux was born on 4 April 1875, in Paris. He was the son of Gustave Élie Monteux, a shoe salesman, and of Clémence Brisac, a piano teacher.
Pierre Benjamin Monteux was born on 4 April 1875, in Paris. He was the son of Gustave Élie Monteux, a shoe salesman, and of Clémence Brisac, a piano teacher.
At the age of six, Monteux expressed the desire to study violin. A cousin, Félix Bloch, gave him lessons for a year and then entrusted him to Jules Dambé, conductor at the Opéra Comique. At the age of nine, Monteux was one of ten accepted by the Conservatoire National de Paris from among 200 applicants. At the conservatory he studied harmony with Jules Garcin and Albert Lavignac, composition with Charles Lenepveu, and violin with Jean Pierre Maurin and Henri Berthelier. In 1896, Monteux graduated from the conservatory with a first prize in violin.
Monteux made his first public appearance, with a string quartet. He earned extra money by playing second violin at the Folies Bergères. Excelling on the viola, he also played in the orchestras of the Opéra Comique and the Société des Concerts Colonne. Within the Colonne orchestra, Monteux rose from concertmaster to conductor, after seventeen years as assistant conductor. In addition, he played with, or conducted the orchestras at the casinos in Étretat and Dieppe. As violist he played in the 1902 premiere of Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. By 1911, Monteux was finding musical fulfillment as a conductor rather than as an instrumentalist, and he organized his own series, known as the Concerts Berlioz, at the Casino de Paris. During the years immediately preceding World War I, he was guest conductor of the Paris Opéra, the Opéra Comique, Covent Garden, and orchestras in London, Berlin, Budapest, and Vienna. In February 1914, he formed the Société des Concerts Populaires (otherwise known as the Concerts Monteux) at the Casino de Paris. One of his motives for creating these series was to offer contemporary composers public performances of their orchestral works. At one of his 1911 concerts at the Casino de Paris, Monteux's conducting skills so impressed Sergei Diaghilev that he engaged Monteux as principal conductor for his Ballet Russe.
Monteux continued touring with Diaghilev's company until 1914. He enjoyed his work with the Ballet Russe more for the sake of the new music than for the ballet art form. On a few occasions he lost his temper and once handed in his resignation over a dispute with Stravinsky. But he was rarely given to temperamental outbursts. He remained grateful to Diaghilev for entrusting him with so many musical responsibilities. For their part the dancers appreciated Monteux's dependable beat.
Monteux was a private in the Thirty-fifth Territorial Infantry of the French Army from August 1914 to September 1916. He fought at Rheims, Verdun, Soissons, and the Argonne. As part of a propaganda effort, Diaghilev planned to have his company tour the United States in the fall of 1916; the French War Ministry allowed Monteux to accompany the group. In the summer of 1917, he gave his first concert in the United States as a symphonic conductor, with the New York Civic Orchestra. He then signed a three-year contract with the Metropolitan Opera, debuting with Faust on November 17, 1917. At the Metropolitan his primary responsibility was directing the French repertoire, as well as several American premieres of French and Russian works, such as Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Le Coq d'Or. With Enrico Caruso and Louise Homer, he shared the opening of 1918-1919, season with Samson et Dalila. The Met's general manager, Giulio Gatti-Casazza, released Monteux from the final year of his contract when the opportunity arose for him to become conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The years with the Boston Symphony were rather difficult. In the spring of 1920, the orchestra struck, and a number of the players left to form a union. Monteux formed a new orchestra of superior quality. He offered his audiences a mixture of the classics and contemporary works, which became his customary concert programming.
Many of the American and world premieres that he conducted, though frequently applauded by the critics, were not always appreciated by the Boston public. But at least, he was helping to educate listeners to the new harmonies and musical ideas. On November 15, 1923, the tenor Roland Hayes appeared with the Boston Symphony, the first time that a black soloist performed with a symphony orchestra in the United States. Thirty-two years later, Hayes was among the musicians who greeted Monteux during his eightieth birthday gala given by the Boston Symphony. Monteux returned to Europe and in 1924 did more work with Diaghilev. That same year, he began an extremely popular ten-year association as co-conductor with Willem Mengelberg and Bruno Walter of the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. In Amsterdam he also organized the Wagner Society. He also founded and served as conductor and music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris (1929 - 1938). When the orchestra toured Germany in 1932, it was the first French orchestra to appear there since 1914. In 1932, Monteux founded the École Monteux in Paris. In 1928, Monteux had conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra during Leopold Stokowski's leave of absence. As in Boston, the public did not appreciate the unobtrusive Monteux as much as the critics did. Monteux vowed not to return again to the United States, where the "star-crazy" audiences cared only for "slim, well-tailored conductors. "
Monteux finally returned to the United States to San Francisco, where orchestra and audience spontaneously adored him and adopted him as one of their own. From 1936 to 1952, he was principal conductor and musical director of the San Francisco Symphony. He vigorously reshaped the orchestra by nourishing a high quality of musicianship and formulating special program series and festivals for an audience of all ages and interests. In 1947 the group made a fifty-three-city tour of the United States and Canada. It became recognized as the best orchestra on the West Coast and one of the best in the country. In 1941, Monteux established a summer school for young conductors at his home in Hancock, Maine.
He returned to the Boston Symphony to guest conduct with his friend Charles Munch during the American and European tours (1952 - 1953, 1956). He also returned to the Metropolitan Opera in 1954 for two more seasons. On September 28, 1954, he made his debut, conducting Manon, at the San Francisco Opera. In 1961, at the age of eighty-five, Monteux accepted the permanent position of principal conductor of the London Symphony. He continued a rigorous schedule of concerts, tours, and recordings. On April 1, 1964, he fell from the podium while conducting Maurice Ravel's Pavane for a Dead Princess, but quickly recovered and concluded the program. Although he appeared afterward in Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, and London, it became clear that he was seriously ill, and he was rushed him home to Maine, where he died.
Monteux's background was Jewish, but he converted to Catholicism. The spiritual side of his life was most important to him. Many critics believe that Monteux was not accorded the public acclaim to which his conducting skills and musical knowledge entitled him. Some blame this on his calm personality, some on his "Santa Claus" appearance and his unpretentious and undramatic conducting style. Yet he radiated a certain fatherly warmth to audiences, musicians, and critics. To many he was respected as "Le Maître" and loved as "Papa" and "Pierre. " His professional knowledge was extremely broad; he excelled in the music of Brahms and Beethoven, as well as in that of the modern composers. He helped to promote such contemporary masters as Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Arthur Honegger, Charles Griffes, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Ottorino Respighi, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Darius Milhaud. He favored minimal baton movements and avoided histrionics. In his "Rules for Young Conductors" he warned conductors never to conduct for the audience and always to have the greatest respect for the instrumentalists.
Monteux became a United States citizen in 1942.
Monteux was married three times. His first wife was a pianist from Bordeaux; his second, Germaine Benedictus, was the mother of his three children. He married Doris Gerald Hodgkins on September 26, 1928.