Serge Koussevitzky
Serge Koussevitzky | |
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Сергей Кусевицкий | |
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. | |
Occupation(s) | Conductor, double-bassist, composer |
Signature | |
Serge Koussevitzky (born Sergey Aleksandrovich Kusevitsky;[n 1] Russian: Сергей Александрович Кусевицкий, IPA: [sʲɪrˈɡʲej ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪtɕ kʊsʲɪˈvʲitskʲɪj]; 26 July [O.S. 14 July] 1874 – 4 June 1951) was a Russian and American conductor, composer, and double-bassist, known for his long tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949.
Biography
Early career
Koussevitzky was born into a Jewish family of professional musicians in
Conductor and publisher
In Berlin he continued to give double bass recitals and, after two years practising conducting in his own home with a student orchestra, he hired the
In America
External audio | |
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Koussevitzky conducting Johann Sebastian Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major BWV 1068 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood in 1947 |
Koussevitzky's appointment as conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) was the beginning of a golden era for the ensemble that would continue until 1949. Over that 25-year period, he built the ensemble's reputation into that of a leading American orchestra. Together with Gertrude Robinson Smith he played a central role in developing the orchestra's internationally acclaimed summer concert and educational programs at Tanglewood where today the 5,700-seat main performance venue bears his name. In the early 1940s, he discovered a young tenor named Alfred Cocozza (who would later be known as Mario Lanza), and provided him with a scholarship to attend Tanglewood. With the Boston Symphony he made numerous recordings, most of which were well regarded by critics. His students and protégés included Leonard Bernstein, Eleazar de Carvalho, Samuel Adler, and Sarah Caldwell. Bernstein once received a pair of cufflinks from Koussevitzky as a gift, and thereafter wore them at every concert he conducted.[7]
Personal life
Koussevitzky's second wife Natalie died in 1942, and he created the Koussevitzky Music Foundations in her honor.[8] In late 1947, he married Olga Naumova (1901–1978), Natalie's niece. Naumova had lived with the couple and acted as their secretary for 18 years. Olga Naumova was the daughter of the distinguished politician and civil servant Aleksandr Naumov (1868, Simbirsk – 1950, Nice, France) who served as Minister of Agriculture in the Russian Imperial Cabinet. She has been described as quiet, and soft-spoken, and Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland counted her among their close friends.[9]
His nephew Faviy Adolfovich Koussevitzky, known professionally as Fabien Sevitzky, was music director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra from 1937 until 1955. Sevitzky changed his surname in order to mitigate accusations of nepotism against him.[10]
Koussevitzky died in Boston in 1951 and was buried alongside his wife Natalie at the Church on the Hill Cemetery in Lenox. His pet is buried at the Pine Ridge Pet Cemetery in Dedham.[11]
Champion of contemporary music
Koussevitzky was a great champion of modern music, commissioning a number of works from prominent composers. During his time in Paris in the early 1920s he programmed much contemporary music, ensuring well-prepared and good quality performances.[12] Among the well-received premieres were Arthur Honegger's Pacific 231, George Gershwin's Second Rhapsody[13] and Albert Roussel's Suite in F.[14]
For the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 50th anniversary, he commissioned Copland's Ode,[n 2] Prokofiev's Symphony No. 4 (which Prokofiev later revised), Paul Hindemith's Concert Music for Strings and Brass, and Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, as well as works by Albert Roussel and Howard Hanson.[18] In 1922, Koussevitzky commissioned Maurice Ravel's arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's 1874 suite for piano, Pictures at an Exhibition, which was premiered on 19 October that year[12] and quickly became the most famous and celebrated orchestration of the work. Koussevitzky held the rights to this version for many years. In 1940, Koussevitzky commissioned Randall Thompson, then a professor at the University of Virginia and director of the men's Glee club, to write a new piece for performance at Tanglewood. Koussevitzky had a large-scale festival piece in mind, but with World War II underway and France having fallen to Germany, Thompson could not find such an inspiration. Instead, he produced his unaccompanied Alleluia – with the word sung 64 times in the Russian manner – which became his most frequently performed work.[citation needed]
Legacy
In 1915, Claude Debussy dedicated the first movement of his En blanc et noir for two pianos to Koussevitzky.[19]
As an avid supporter of new music, Koussevitzky created the Koussevitzky Music Foundations in 1942. The basic aim of the foundations was to assist composers by commissioning new compositions and underwriting the cost of their performance.[8] New works created with the foundations' support include: Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes, Douglas Moore's opera The Ballad of Baby Doe, Béla Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3, Henri Dutilleux's string quartet Ainsi la nuit and Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie.
Following Koussevitzky's 1951 death, his widow, Olga Koussevitzky, presented double-bassist
In 1956, the American composer Howard Hanson, a friend of Koussevitzky, wrote his Elegy for Serge Koussevitzky.
The Tanglewood Music Center awards the Koussevitzky Prize for outstanding student conductor.[20][21] It has been awarded since 1954, but unlike many prizes, it is not awarded annually.[22] Past winners have included Seiji Ozawa (1960),[20] Russell Peck (1966), and Michael Tilson Thomas (1969).[21]
The Musicians Club of New York, of which Olga Koussevitzky was president from 1962 to 1975, presents the Serge and Olga Koussevitzky Young Artist Awards. Three prizes are awarded annually in categories that rotate between voice, strings, piano, and woodwind/brass. Winners have included Judith Raskin (1956),[23] Jean Kraft (1959),[24] Robert DeGaetano (1969), Paul Neubauer (1982) and François Salque (1994).[25]
Recordings
External audio | |
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Koussevitzky conducting Jean Sibelius' Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1935 |
Serge Koussevitzky recorded with the Boston Symphony exclusively for Victor/
Some of Koussevitzky's later recordings, including performances of the second suite from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet (1945, Symphony Hall, Boston), first symphony (1947, Carnegie Hall, New York, a session that included Mendelssohn's "Italian" Symphony), and fifth symphony (1945, Symphony Hall, Boston), were reportedly mastered on RCA's sound film optical recording process, first employed in this way with the San Francisco Symphony in March 1942.
Koussevitzky's final recordings, made in November 1950, on magnetic tape using RCA's proprietary RT-21 two-track, 1⁄4-inch machines at 30 inches per second, were acclaimed performances of Sibelius's Second Symphony and Grieg's "The Last Spring". Both have been re-released by RCA on CD in Taiwan. Films of some of Koussevitzky's performances at Tanglewood, including a very spirited Beethoven "Egmont Overture", were made during the 1940s.
Several of the Koussevitzky/ Boston Symphony's 78 rpm recordings with were reissued on LP on the bargain
Notable premieres
In concert
- Alexander Scriabin, Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, Moscow, 2 March 1911
- Maurice Ravel's orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Paris, 19 October 1922
- Arthur Honegger's Pacific 231, 1923
- Sergei Prokofiev, First Violin Concerto with Marcel Darrieux as soloist, Paris, 18 October 1923
- Prokofiev, Second Symphony, Paris, 6 June 1925
- Arnold Bax, Symphony No.2, Boston, 13 December 1929
- Prokofiev, Fourth Symphony, Boston, 14 November 1930
- George Gershwin, Second Rhapsody, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Hall, Boston, 29 January 1932
- David Diamond, Symphony No. 2, Boston, 14 October 1944
- Béla Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Hall, Boston, 1 December 1944
- Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring (suite) Boston Symphony Orchestra, 1945
- Samuel Barber, Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Eleanor Steber as soloist, Boston Symphony Orchestra, 1948
- Leonard Bernstein, The Age of Anxiety, Leonard Bernstein as soloist, Tanglewood, 1949
On record
- Maurice Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Boston Symphony Orchestra, October 1930
- Jean Sibelius, Seventh Symphony, BBC Symphony Orchestra, HMV, London, 1933
- Also sprach Zarathustra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, 1935
- Roy Harris, Third Symphony, Boston Symphony Orchestra, 1939
- Hector Berlioz, Harold in Italy with William Primrose as soloist, 1946
- Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring (suite), Boston Symphony Orchestra, 1946
Notes and references
Notes
- ^ Koussevitzky's original Russian forename is usually transliterated into English as either "Sergei" or "Sergey"; however, he himself adopted the French spelling "Serge", using it in his signature. (See The Koussevitzky Music Foundations official web site. Retrieved 5 November 2009.) His surname can be transliterated variously as "Koussevitzky", "Koussevitsky", "Kussevitzky", "Kusevitsky", or, into Polish, as "Kusewicki"; however, he himself chose to use "Koussevitzky".
- Piano Concerto in G; Ravel declined the offer,[16] and the work had its American premieres simultaneously in Boston, under Koussevitzky, and Philadelphia under Leopold Stokowski.[17]
References
- ^ "Serge Koussevitzky (Conductor) - Short Biography".
- ^ ISBN 1-56159-239-0.
- ^ "Serge Koussevitzky | American conductor".
- ^ Smith, Moses (1947). Koussevitzky. Allen, Towne & Heath. p. 15.
- ^ a b Colin Eatock (Spring 2003). "Serge Koussevitzky Discovers America". Discourses in Music. 4 (2).
- ISBN 1-55972-108-1.
- ^ Joan Peyser, Bernstein: A Biography
- ^ ISBN 978-0-312-16962-6.
- ISBN 978-0-312-03313-2.
- ^ "Contest on Koussevitzky Will Moved by Nephew, Musician". Pittsfield Berkshire County Eagle. Pittsfield, MA. 8 August 1951. Archived from the original on 6 April 2022. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
The nephew, whose name originally was Koussevitzky, shortened it, he has told reporters, because he didn't want to be accused of trying to 'cash in' on the reputation of his famous uncle.
- ISBN 978-1-59629-750-0.
- ^ a b Nichols R. The Harlequin Years: music in Paris 1917–1929. Thames & Hudson, London, 2002.
- ^ "Second Rhapsody". gershwin.com. Retrieved 4 December 2022.
- ^ Coppola P. Dix-sept ans de musique à Paris 1922–1939. Librairie F Rouge & Cie, Lausanne, 1944, p26.
- ^ Smith 1947, pp. 218, 224.
- ISBN 978-0-300-10882-8.
- ISBN 978-1-4617-0680-9.
- ^ Wilfried D'hondt (15 October 2003). "Serge Alexandrovich Koussevitzky" at the Wayback Machine (archive index) Originally retrieved 2 April 2007.
- Kennedy Center. Retrieved 7 November 2019.
- ^ a b Seiji Ozawa at www.bso.org. Retrieved 5 November 2001.
- ^ a b Michael Tilson Thomas at www.bso.org. Retrieved 5 November 2009.
- ARSC Journal. 21 (2). Association for Recorded Sound Collections: 261. Retrieved 5 October 2009.
- ^ "Judith Raskin Wins Award". The New York Times. 24 April 1956 – via timesmachine.nytimes.com/.
- ^ "Two Music Winners Named". The New York Times. 17 October 1959 – via timesmachine.nytimes.com.
- ^ "Serge & Olga Koussevitzky Young Artist Award Winners". www.musiciansclubofny.org. Retrieved 23 March 2018.
External links
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How to use archival material |
- Free scores by Sergei Koussevitzky at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- Discography: Young, Edward (1990). ARSC Journal Part I: 20: 45–129 and Part II: 20: 241–265.
- Serge Koussevitzky at AllMusic
- Serge Koussevitzky at the Koussevitzky Music Foundations
- Serge Koussevitzky Archived 4 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine at the Koussevitzky Recordings Society
- Serge Koussevitzky concert notes at the American Symphony Orchestra
- Serge Koussevitzky biography, bach-cantatas.com
- / Turangalîla-Symphonie Archived 18 June 2009 at the Wayback Machine A film about Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie. commissioned by the Koussevitzky foundation.
- Sergei Koussevitzky Time magazine cover 10 October 1938
- Double Bass Concerto in F-sharp minor, Op. 3, 1st movement on YouTube
- Double Bass Concerto, Op. 3, 2nd movement on YouTube
- Double Bass Concerto, Op. 3, 3rd movement on YouTube