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Although Pierre Monteux conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra for only five seasons (1919 to 1924), his name is still strongly linked to the BSO and Boston, thanks in part to his many appearances as a guest conductor in the 1950s. Monteux was born in Paris in 1875 and began his musical studies in violin and viola. He made his name as conductor of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in the teens, conducting the premières of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Petrouchka and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, and elsewhere, of Debussy’s Jeux. Monteux led the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra for many years, as well as the Metropolitan Opera, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris. In 1943 he and his wife, Doris Hodgkins Monteux, founded a school for conductors and orchestral musicians in Hancock, Maine. He died in 1964.

Monteux is pictured in Symphony Hall during a 1958 WBUR interview with Louis Spier, looking rather younger than his 83 years. His face is reputed to have aged so little over the decades that in his later years he was said to autograph his photos with the line, "Pierre Monteux in ten years." At about the same time he told the London Philharmonic that he would sign a contract only if it were for 25 years – with an option to renew for another 25.

Photo by Boston University Photo Services

11 December 2000
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