The Key Conductor: Pierre Monteux

by Maureen Buja 

French conductor Pierre Monteux (1875–1964) always seemed to be the right man at the right time. As a student of violin and viola at the Paris Conservatoire, his fellow students included George Enescu, Fritz Kreisler, and Alfred Cortot. Upon graduation, one of his first jobs was violist for the orchestra of the Folies Bergère (1889–1892), when the Folies had Toulouse-Lautrec doing their posters. He played in or conducted works by Camille Saint-SaënsSaint, including being a last-minute conductor for a performance of Saint-Saëns’s cantata La Lyre et la Harpe (the composer at the organ), earning Saint-Saëns’s undying gratitude.

Irwin D. Hoffmann: Pierre Monteux, 1959 (Boston Public Library)

In 1894, he was named both principal violist and assistant conductor of the Colonne Orchestra in Paris. The orchestra’s founder, Édouard Colonne, had known Berlioz and could work with Monteux on what the composer really wanted in a performance of his works. His next position was as chief conductor for the seasonal Dieppe Casino orchestra (while still maintaining his Colonne positions).

In 1910, the Colonne Orchestra played for the Ballets Russes season, and Monteux met Stravinsky for the first time. He played viola for the world premiere of The Firebird in 1910, and the next year led the rehearsals for the premiere of Petrushka. He ended up conducting the premiere as well, at the insistence of the composer.

Along with impressing Saint-Saëns and Stravinsky, he also caught the eye of Claude Debussy, particularly because of his ability to rehearse and present new music. When the Colonne Orchestra was giving the world premiere of Debussy’s Images pour orchestra, it was Monteux who led the orchestral rehearsals, and Debussy conducted the premiere (26 January 1913).

After the January premiere of Images, it was onto Debussy’s ballet Jeux and then, on 29 May 1913, the infamous premiere of The Rite of Spring and riot.

With the start of WWI, Monteux was conscripted into the French Army, but Diaghilev got him released to take the Ballets Russes on tour to North America. After the war, the Boston Symphony Orchestra approached Monteux to be their new chief conductor. He only lasted 5 years there, but changed the orchestra for the better, and handed it over to Serge Koussevitzky, who would be its music director for the next 25 years.

Pierre Monteux, 1924 (Pierre Monteux Memorial Foundation Archive)

Monteux, in the meantime, went to Amsterdam, where he became the first conductor at the Concertgebouw, serving under Willem Mengelberg, the chief conductor. The other major work on this new recording is Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, written in 1931 for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The influence of Bach on Stravinsky is palpable in the Symphony, particularly Bach’s St Matthew Passion, which had been widely played all over Europe during the work’s bicentenary in 1927.

Alfred Bendiner: Pierre Monteux (1947) (Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, Gift of Mrs. Alfred Bendiner)

Taking up his conducting career at the cusp of the 20th century, Monteux took part in some of the most exciting and controversial happenings in music, from premieres of works by Saint-Saëns to the Parisian riots over Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. He brought the Boston Symphony back to life and then went on to lead one of Europe’s great orchestras.

This 150th anniversary tribute to Pierre Monteux was recorded in 1961 as a live broadcast on the BBC Home Service. The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, as led by Monteux, give us the best of his repertoire in performances of works that couldn’t be further apart in style: Debussy’s orchestral Images, and Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms.

Pierre Monteux: 150th Anniversary Tribute: Live Performances

BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
SOMM Recordings ARIADNE 5042

Official Website

13 Facts You Didn’t Know About Fanny Mendelssohn

by Emily E. Hogstad

Most musicians don’t know a lot about Fanny Mendelssohn besides the fact that she was Felix’s uber-talented older sister. But she was a hugely important musical figure in her own right.

We look at thirteen facts you (probably) didn’t know about the life and career of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel.

Fanny Mendelssohn © play-images.primephonic.com    4. She wrote her own music for her wedding the night before the ceremony. Felix had never gotten around to doing it for her, as he’d promised he’d do.

5. She named her son Sebastian Ludwig Felix Hensel after her three favorite composers: Bach, Beethoven…and her brother. Sebastian would be her only child.

Miriam’s Song of Praise by Wilhelm Hensel
Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2020

6. Wilhelm Hensel used her as a model for a famous painting depicting Miriam, a Biblical figure often used to represent the art of music. In 1838 Queen Victoria met Hensel, saw the painting, and commented on Miriam’s beauty. Hensel eventually presented the painting to the queen, and in return she gave the Hensels a diamond and emerald ring.

7. While Felix visited Queen Victoria, he had an awkward encounter with her, thanks to Fanny’s genius. Victoria singled out one of his songs for praise, and he was forced to admit that he hadn’t actually written it: Fanny had. Turns out that, unbeknownst to the public, Fanny had secretly published several works under Felix’s name!

8. Her 1829 Easter Sonata was also originally attributed to her brother. When the manuscript was discovered in 1970, scholars saw that it was signed “F. Mendelssohn” and automatically assumed it was a lost work of Felix’s. Later research revealed that it was, in fact, written by Fanny.    

9. She became famous for the musical events she held at her salons. If her gender was going to prohibit her from playing in public, she decided she’d bring the audience into her home.

Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn

10. She was a conductor. One of the benefits of giving concerts in her home was that she could take on any musical role or responsibility she wanted. She once wrote to Felix, “Mother has certainly told you about the…orchestra on Saturday and how I stood up there with a baton in my hand… Had I not been so horribly shy, and embarrassed with every stroke, I would’ve been able to conduct reasonably well.”

11. At the age of 40 she finally decided to go against her brother’s wishes and to start publishing music under her own name. She wrote a fretful letter to Felix informing him of her plans: “Actually I wouldn’t expect you to read this rubbish now, busy as you are, if I didn’t have to tell you something. But since I know from the start that you won’t like it, it’s a bit awkward to get under way. So laugh at me or not, as you wish: I’m afraid of my brothers at age 40, as I was of Father at age 14… In a word, I’m beginning to publish.” Unfortunately, she didn’t have much time left.

12. Her final illness was sudden. On May 14, 1847, at the age of 41, Fanny assembled a chorus at her house to rehearse a piece by Felix. She was directing from the piano when she lost sensation in her hands. This had happened before, so she took a break and rubbed her fingers with vinegar to try to get the feeling in them back. She yelled from the other room as they sang, “How beautiful it sounds!” She then had a stroke, and she died before the day was over.

13. Felix was beyond devastated at her death. He became paranoid that he’d also die young from a stroke. And five months after Fanny’s death, that’s exactly what happened.

César Franck (Died on November 8, 1890) Rejected Gems of Precocity

by Hermione Lai 

César Franck’s genius flowered astonishingly late. Until his 50s, he composed mostly sacred choral works, songs, and early orchestral essays that met with indifference. Public acclaim eluded him as even his 1841 Trio dedicated to Franz Liszt faded quickly.

César Franck

Yet from 1879 onward, a creative surge produced masterpieces that redefined French music. Just think of the passionate Piano Quintet, the vivid symphonic poem Le Chasseur maudit, the Symphonic Variations or the Prélude, Choral et Fugue.   

César Franck: Prélude, Choral et Fugue

Disowning his Youth

These works fused German structural depth with elegance, influencing Ravel, Debussy, and the entire École Franckiste. Yet, Franck remained a modest man, dying on 8 November 1890 after a street accident exacerbated pleurisy.

In his early years, however, Franck displayed an astonishing natural gift for the piano and composition. He was one of the most astonishing child prodigies ever, giving public concerts of dazzling difficulty, improvising with effortless invention, and composing works that revealed a striking command of harmony and form.

Franck assigned opus numbers to his juvenile works, but later in life, disowned them. To commemorate his passing on 8 November, why don’t we listen to some of these rejected gems of Franck’s early precocity.

Child Genius

César Franck

Just imagine a twelve-year-old boy stepping onto a candle-lit stage in Liège, in 1834. César Franck launches into his own Premier Grand Concerto, Op. 2, with octaves thundering and themes pirouetting like circus acrobats.

The king sends him a gold medal, and critics hail him as “a second Mozart!” Yet the boy at the keyboard was already bored. He has just finished writing his second piano concerto before breakfast.

Relentlessly exploited by his father and reduced to a traveling cash register, Franck’s childhood was anything but ideal. Nicolas-Joseph Franck, a failed painter turned banker, saw in his elder son the jackpot every stage parent dreams of.

By eight, César was enrolled at the Liège Conservatory, sweeping medals in piano, harmony, and sight-singing. By eleven he gave his first public recital. By twelve he was on the road to Brussels and Antwerp billed as “The Prodigy Franck.”

César Arrives in Paris

Franz Liszt and Sigismond Thalberg

Predictably, it was time to look towards Paris, a city that in the 1830s was a circus of virtuosos. Liszt made pianos weep and Thalberg made them sparkle. Into this dazzling arena Nicolas-Joseph Franck dragged his sons, renting cramped rooms in the bohemian ninth arrondissement.

César, thirteen, played for Anton Reicha, Beethoven’s friend, and the Conservatoire’s gatekeeper of genius. The boy sight-read a Bach fugue, then improvised another, yet the doors of the Conservatoire remained closed as foreigners could not be admitted.

Nicolas-Joseph, undeterred, secured French citizenship papers with remarkable speed, and on 4 October 1837, the fifteen-year-old César Franck strode through the gates as a newly minted Frenchman.

Quiet Conquest

César Franck

What followed was five years of quiet conquest. One by one, the Conservatoire’s highest honours fell before him. 1er Prix de Piano (1838, age fifteen), 1er Prix de Contrepoint (1839), 1er Prix de Fugue (1840, age seventeen), 2ème Prix d’Orgue (1841), and the Grand Prix d’Honneur for transposing a fiendish sonata down a minor third at sight.

When examiners challenged him to improvise a fugue on a theme by Cherubini, he produced a double fugue so brilliant that the aging composer himself, seated in the audience, was speechless.

Another wonderful anecdote survives. In 1838, examiners asked the boy to harmonize a plainchant on the spot. He delivered four versions, with harmonies by Bach, Palestrina, Beethoven, and himself.

The Cash-Cow Variations

Between 1834 and 1837, César Franck produced twenty publishable piano works, gave each an opus number, and watched his father turn them into cash. These pieces in the brilliant style sound like a time capsule of 1830s Paris.

We find the cash cow of the decade in his “Variations brillantes.” Take a hit tune, spin six variations, and finish with a polonaise. Here, young Franck was guided by models of Herz, Hünten, and the young Thalberg.

We also find free-form roller-coasters in his “Grandes Fantaisies.” Generally, it starts with a slow introduction, followed by a borrowed tune that gets dramatically developed, all finishing with a flashy coda. This is the stuff that made Franz Liszt famous.

Two Concertos, One Bonfire

César Franck’s Piano Concerto No. 2

Two full-scale concertos crowned the early Franck catalogue. The first, premiered when César was twelve, vanished into his own fireplace a decade later. Not a single page survived the adult composer’s wrath.

A single sentence in Robert Stove’s biography explains the purge. “Franck personally destroyed the manuscript of his First Concerto, determined that no trace of his father’s greed should embarrass his adult reputation.”

The second, a twenty-five-minute B-minor juggernaut of pure teenage thunder miraculously escaped the flames. It was printed in 1836, but the score lay forgotten until it was dusted off in 1984.

The Exile that Forged a New Composer

In 1842, Nicolas-Joseph Franck stormed out of Paris with his family in tow. The press had turned savage, and Henri Blanchard, chief critic of the Revue et Gazette musicale, mocked the father’s “imperial” names for his sons and called the endless family concerts “aggressive commerce.”

One review actually ended with the line “Enough of the Francks!” Nicolas-Joseph yanked César from the Conservatoire mid-semester and brought the family back to Belgium for a fresh virtuoso tour.

Thankfully, the excursion only lasted eighteen months, and by the spring of 1844, the family was back in Paris. However, César had had enough. He had fallen in love with his piano student Félicité Desmousseaux, an actress from a “scandalous” theatre family.

Two years later, César walked out for good and married Félicité amid revolution barricades. He never spoke to his father again, and the break freed him from the virtuoso circus. That’s when the cathedral composer was born.

Inventing Tomorrow

César Franck at the organ

Of the twenty glittering receipts his father forced into print, only one escaped the adult Franck’s censure, the Première Grande Fantaisie, Op. 12. He played it in recitals as late as the 1880s.

Why should this have been the lone survivor? It’s rather obvious, really, because beneath the Hummel octaves and Chopin-scented trills, the fourteen-year-old boy had already invented tomorrow.

In measure 27, a four-note motif rises in the left hand, is answered by the right, and then vanishes into a storm of arpeggios. 200 measures later, it returns in the coda, now transfigured, radiant, and binding the whole fantasy together.

The young boy had discovered cyclic form, and he never let it go. That technique and trademark would later bind the D-minor Symphony and loop the Prélude, Choral et Fugue. In fact, every late masterpiece was born between a trill and a polonaise.

Can Sound Be Felt or Seen? How Do Deaf People Experience Music?

by  Joanna Latala 

Music is often thought of as an art form that exists primarily through sound, but for deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, music is not necessarily beyond reach. Instead of being heard in the traditional sense, music can be felt through vibrations, seen through visual representations, and even experienced emotionally in profound ways. How do deaf individuals engage with music, and what innovations allow them to access its beauty? Let’s explore the ways in which music transcends sound.

  

Feeling Music: Experiencing Sound Through Vibrations

One of the most common ways that deaf individuals experience music is through vibrations. Sound waves create physical movements in the air, and these vibrations can be felt through the skin, bones, and body. Here’s how:

• Bone Conduction – The inner ear can pick up vibrations transmitted through bones, a technique that some deaf musicians and listeners use to “hear” music in a tactile way.
• Vibrational Devices – Special speakers, vests, and platforms amplify low-frequency sounds, allowing deaf individuals to physically feel the rhythm and intensity of the music.
• Subwoofers and Bass Frequencies – Many deaf concertgoers stand close to speakers or place their hands on instruments to feel the bass and percussion elements of a song.

Famous deaf composer Ludwig van Beethoven reportedly discovered this method, pressing his ear against his piano to feel the vibrations as he composed.   

 Can Sound Be Visual?

© evolving-science.com

For some individuals, music is not just something that can be felt—it can also be seen through visual representations and sensory experiences. Several ways allow people to perceive music beyond sound:

• Synesthesia – Some people experience a neurological phenomenon where they “see” music as colours, patterns, or movements. Certain artists and composers, such as Wassily Kandinsky, claimed to perceive sound visually.
• Sound Visualisation Technology – Spectrograms, oscilloscopes, and LED displays convert sound waves into moving images, helping people visually interpret different frequencies and rhythms.
• Sign Language Interpretation – Deaf performers use expressive sign language to convey the emotion and meaning behind lyrics and melodies, offering a visual equivalent of musical storytelling.   Play

 Music Accessibility for the Deaf Community

Advancements in technology and creative initiatives have made music more accessible for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. Some groundbreaking efforts include:

• Vibrating Concert Venues – Events designed specifically for the deaf, such as deaf raves, incorporate vibrating floors, wearable bass vests, and synchronised light shows.
• Haptic Wearables – Devices like SubPac and Music: Not Impossible translate music into tactile sensations across the body, allowing users to “feel” music in an immersive way.
• ASL Music Performances – Artists like Sean Forbes and Signmark, who are deaf rappers, bring music to the deaf community by performing in sign language while incorporating rhythm and expression.

Final Thoughts –  Music Beyond Sound

Music is not just an auditory experience—it is a multisensory art form that can be felt, seen, and expressed in various ways. Whether through vibrations, visual interpretations, or innovative technology, the deaf community continues to engage with and contribute to the world of music. These alternative ways of experiencing sound challenge the idea that music is solely for those who can hear, proving that music is truly universal.

What Charitable Causes Did These Eight Great Composers Support?

by Emily E. Hogstad

Over the centuries, classical composers have used their fame and fortune to support various philanthropic causes.

Whether raising funds for wounded soldiers, supporting abandoned children, or helping fellow musicians in need, all of these composers felt compelled to give back to society after their musical successes…and it’s fascinating to know what causes were closest to their hearts.

Here are eight composers and the causes they supported.

George Frideric Handel and the Foundling Hospital

Portrait of George Frideric Handel by Thomas Hudson, 1756

The Foundling Hospital was founded in 1739 for the “education and maintenance of exposed and deserted young children.”

As its name suggests, the institution focused on improving child health, but it also provided housing and basic clothing. At fourteen, boys were apprenticed into a trade; at sixteen, girls were apprenticed as servants. It was a grim future, but certainly better than the alternatives!

The Foundling Hospital became a popular cause for wealthy and artistic types to support. Supporters include William Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, and others.

In May 1749, Handel conducted a benefit concert for the Foundling Hospital. He wrote a special work for the occasion, the “Foundling Hospital Anthem.” At the end, Handel tacked on his Hallelujah Chorus, before that work had become famous.   

The following year, Handel donated a pipe organ to the hospital chapel and gave two more benefit concerts there.

In fact, an annual performance of Messiah began to be held at the hospital, which helped grant that work its place in the musical canon.

Handel’s concerts raised around £7000 (the rough equivalent of £1 million plus today).

Ludwig van Beethoven and Wounded Austrian Soldiers

Christian Honeman: Ludwig van Beethoven, 1803 (Beethovenhaus Bonn)

The Battle of Hanau occurred between Austro-Bavarian forces and French Napoleonic forces in late October 1813. The French won.

Five weeks later, in early December 1813, Ludwig van Beethoven participated in a fundraising concert in Vienna meant to benefit injured Austrian soldiers. The orchestra was made up of the stars of Viennese music, like Ignaz Schuppanzigh, Spohr, Hummel, Meyerbeer, and Salieri.

Beethoven’s remarks included the observation “We are moved by nothing but pure patriotism and the joyful sacrifice of our powers for those who have sacrificed so much for us.”

At this performance, he premiered his seventh symphony and his overture “Wellington’s Victory.” Both works were received enthusiastically by the audience   

Franz Liszt for Flood Victims

Franz Liszt in 1870

In March 1838, a massive Danube River flood devastated towns and cities like Buda and Pest. The flood that year was especially severe due to melting ice and ice dams, and thousands lost their homes.

Although he was an international touring artist, Franz Liszt took his Hungarian roots extremely seriously. The next month, he took time out of his busy schedule to perform in Vienna to benefit the flood victims.

However, his partner Countess Marie d’Agoult was angry with him for his charity work. Their relationship was already fracturing, and she was frustrated that he left her to give (what she felt were) self-indulgent charity concerts. Liszt certainly didn’t assuage her concerns when he wrote letters to her on the stationery of wealthy society women who were helping with the fundraising!

Clara Schumann for Widowed Josephine Lang

Clara Schumann

Josephine Lang was a composer and pianist who was born in 1815. Robert and Clara Schumann befriended her; in fact, Robert Schumann published one of her songs in his magazine Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in 1838.

In 1842, Lang married a lawyer and poet named Christian Reinhold Köstlin. Their marriage was relatively short-lived, as he died tragically in 1856, leaving her an impoverished widow.

Josephine Lang

After struggling for a while, she reached out to Clara Schumann. She arranged a benefit concert for Lang and played in it for her friend.    

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Wounded Serbian Soldiers

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1893

In 1876, Russia supported Serbia in the Serbian-Ottoman War.

That summer, a music education organisation known as the Russian Music Society commissioned an orchestral work from Tchaikovsky. They wanted a work to be performed at a Red Cross fundraiser, with proceeds going to wounded Serbian soldiers.

He came back with his famous Marche Slav. The first section portrays the repression of the Serbs, and later sections depict the Russians coming to their aid.

The work has become incredibly popular over the ensuing years, but few know its philanthropic origins.   

Edward Elgar for Belgian and Polish War Victims

Charles Frederick Grindrod: Edward Elgar, ca. 1903

World War I broke out in the summer of 1914. In August, Germany invaded neutral Belgium, to the horror of Britain.

Not long afterwards, Elgar wrote Carillon, a recitation of a patriotic poem by Belgian poet Émile Cammaerts to orchestral accompaniment. It premiered that December.

The next year, he wrote Polonia in honour of Poland. He included quotations from the Polish national anthem, patriotic songs, and themes by Polish musical heroes Chopin and Paderewski.

Elgar conducted the premiere of Polonia at the Polish Victims’ Relief Fund Concert in London in July 1915.    

Leonard Bernstein for AIDS Activism

Leonard Bernstein

Composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein contributed to a number of charitable causes over his career, championing anti-war causes, Amnesty International, racial equity, and others.

One of the causes he helped fundraise for was AIDS activism, back when doing so was controversial due to the disease’s association with the gay community.

In 1986, he approached Mathilde Krim, the founding chairman of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, suggesting a fundraising concert.

In Krim’s words:

“And so it was that six short weeks later, on a cold December night, Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt sang ‘Ave Maria’ together, Isaac Stern played ‘Fiddler on the Roof;’ Bernadette Peters performed the First World War song ‘My Buddy,’ and Hildegard Behrens sang, ‘Falling in Love Again.’ The evening ended with a standing and swaying audience joining the performers singing ‘Somewhere’ from West Side Story. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. It was another Lenny ‘miracle night,’ unforgettable for its intensity, beauty and depth of emotion. It also provided manna from heaven to several unfunded but most deserving AIDS research projects.”

This was at the beginning of the worst part of the AIDS crisis in America. Bernstein continued supporting the cause until his death in 1990.   

Giuseppe Verdi for Impoverished Elderly Musicians

Giuseppe Verdi, 1844

Thanks to his string of hugely successful operas, Giuseppe Verdi ended up becoming one of the wealthiest composers in the history of classical music. He wanted to give back.

In 1895, he planned and endowed a home for impoverished musicians in Milan, known as the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti (which became known as the Casa Verdi). He wrote that he wanted a safe place for “old singers not favoured by fortune, or who, when they were young, did not possess the virtue of saving.”

Verdi died in 1901. The following year, a handful of musicians moved into Casa Verdi.

Amazingly, the institution is still in existence today! According to a 2018 New York Times article:

The successful applicants get to spend their last years in a place where, in addition to room, board and medical treatment, they have access to concerts, music rooms, 15 pianos, a large organ, harps, drum sets and the company of their peers.